Using C as an intermediary language can still be useful at times. For example, when writing a bootstrap compiler, you can target C and magically support virtua

Using C as an intermediary language can still be useful at times. For example, when writing a bootstrap compiler, you can target C and magically support virtually every platform. It's not so great for production compilers for numerous reasons, including performance (poor unless your languages maps cleanly to C) and debugging experience (debugging object code is not fun, and if your object is C, you get stuck with whatever debugging information your C compiler outputs; you don't have any say in the matter). For bootstrapping compilers, I only see three sane options, really: 1. Write an interpreter to host the compiler (probably in C). 2. Write a cross-compiler. 3. Write an X-to-C compiler. I insist on C here not because of performance, but because it's ubiquitous.