4 ms·

> that doesn't make them perl scripts! but it doesn't make them compilers either :shrug:

• zem 3y ago
  of course it does! what else would you call something like chicken scheme [https://call-cc.org/ https://call-cc.org/], ats [https://ats-lang.sourceforge.net/ https://ats-lang.sourceforge.net/], or ghc [https://www.haskell.org/ghc/ https://www.haskell.org/ghc/]? they are not "scripts", they are full-blown compilers that happen to use C as their compilation target, and then leverage C compilers to generate code for a variety of architecures. it's a very sensible way to do things.
  • fpgamlirfanboy 3y ago
    ghc doesn't target C since 7.0. the other two i couldn't be bothered to care even less about. when you can point to a production grade """compiler""" that targets C (instead of emitting ir or asm directly) then i'll be happy to discuss the merits/virtues of source to source translation instead of compilation.
  • treflop 3y ago
    Umm, everyone calls them transpilers?
    • zem 3y ago
      transpilers are a subset of compilers though. they span the gamut from things like coffeescript that do fairly simple syntax transformations, to full fledged languages whose compilation target happens to be a high level language like C or javascript, but which otherwise implement most of what you would expect in a "compiler".