[carterza]

Compiles... compiles.

Edit -

Sorry - that was rude. I should have elaborated.

Transpiling is a specific type of compilation that involves two languages with a similar level of abstraction.

Compilation involves languages with different levels of abstraction.

Nim offers a much higher-level abstraction than C, thus you could consider the process of converting Nim to C, a compilation process rather than a transpilation process.

[throwaway7645]

This comes up everytime i post about this and most people agree with me that transpile means convert to a different source language. It is definitely a common use, but I realize it is a gray area.

Edit: Compiling def isn't wrong, but Transpiling is more descriptive to me as it indicates you're not going to assembly or machine language or something like that.

[dom96]

Compiling is the correct terminology here. Nim transpiles to JavaScript, but it compiles to C and C++. You don't say that Rust transpiles to LLVM IR, do you?

[throwaway7645]

Mad respect for you Dom, but why would going from Nim -> JS be Transpiling and Nim-> C++ be compiling? Both go from a high level Lang to another high level Lang.

[dom96]

I don't consider C/C++ high-level.

[throwaway7645]

I would normally agree with you, but that seems subjective.

[dom96]

It is indeed a little subjective and changes with time. This Wikipedia article explains it fairly well I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_programming_languag...

[felixangell]

I would say compiles is a more general form of transpiles. Transpiling meaning it compiles into a higher level form i.e. c, C++, JavaScript, and compile meaning it compiles into a more lower level form i.e assembly, bytecode, etc?

That's just how I look at it anyway.