Compilation is the act of generating a back-end code. Most languages compile to Machine Code, but you could also compile to some other language like C, Haskell,

Compilation is the act of generating a back-end code. Most languages compile to Machine Code, but you could also compile to some other language like C, Haskell, Javascript that you know has a very well-optimized compiler. Say, if you generate C code, and do it well, you know that your language will be almost as fast as C.