Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by progman 3087 days ago
"Transpile" is an artificial buzzword, just meaning source-to-source translation, from Pascal to C for instance.

Actually, there is no such thing as a "transpiler". There are only compilers which are programs which translate from one regular language A into another regular language B. It doesn't matter whether B is a high-level language or low-level machine code.
1 comments
Touche 3087 days ago
Yes, it's another word for source-to-source translation, you are right. It is not, however, cross-compilation, which is what I was responding to. So I'm not sure why you replied to me with this statement.

In any event, is it so bad to have another word for source-to-source compilation? What is it that angers you about it?

link
progman 3087 days ago
> is it so bad to have another word for source-to-source compilation?

If you compile C to Assembler then you compile from one code (C) to another code (Asm, or machine code which is the compact form of Asm). What's the difference to a "transpiler"?

Wikipedia states that the difference is just the (almost) equal level of abstraction. I would call such a thing a high-level source-to-source compiler. The word "transpiler" is uncertain and barely known, hence the people here who ask what a transpiler is.

Cross-compilation is another thing since it means compiling on one platform for another platform. In all three cases we deal with compilers from one regular language A into another regular language B.

link