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by throwaway7645 3025 days ago
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.

1 comments

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?
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.
I don't consider C/C++ high-level.
I would normally agree with you, but that seems subjective.
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...
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.