>Back in the mid-80s, [...] Of course, the word "transpiler" had not yet been coined, Friend fyi... the word "transpiler" to make a distinction of converting t

>Back in the mid-80s, [...] Of course, the word "transpiler" had not yet been coined, Friend fyi... the word "transpiler" to make a distinction of converting the source to another higher-level language rather than a lower-level machine language appeared as early as 1960s. In the 1964 paper, see the last page and the 2nd-to-last paragraph: http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/1/28.full.pdf+html http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/1/28.full.pdf+htm... >There are also many, like me, who find it to be a distinction without a difference. We call them all compilers. [...] Now if you like the word "transpiler", as many do, I won't try to convince you otherwise. I just wanted to explain why some don't find it a useful distinction and prefer "compiler" for all these cases. I understand your point of why "compilers" already encompasses transpilers so the word "transpilers" seems redundant. But I'll try to explain why "transpilers" still endures. If you're not familiar with concept of "lumpers vs splitters", take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters Imagine if we did not have the word "transpiler". Language usage would still evolve to make a distinction via extra prefixes or suffixes or extra adjectives. Examples of alternative history might be: - "compiler-to-asm" or CTA acronym, or "compiler-to-executable", or "native compiler" - "compiler-to-another-high-level-language" or CTAHLA acronym, or "programming language translator" But humans don't like to say or write verbose multi-syllable terminology and they'd eventually substitute a simpler word as shorthand for the distinction. That shorthand word might be "transpilers" or another word to serve the same purpose. And that's what happened in 1964 when AF Parker-Rhodes suggested the word "transpiler". Similar concept of labeling Linux ext4, Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS as "file systems" instead of just "databases" -- even though they are all conceptually "databases" which have same computer science concepts of keys, blocks, btree indexes. If we tried to police the language and insist that "file system" adds no useful distinction because it's a "database"... human language usage would still evolve with extra adjectives such as "operating-system-built-in-database-for-documents-and-arbitrary-files-etc" ... which is a cumbersome mouthful which motivates a shorthand terminology... perhaps call it "file system".