[vmladenov]

> On first impression it sounds unserious—real compilers output machine code—it's tempting to denigrate it by calling it a transpiler.

What? No, this is so wrong. “Real” compilers transform input from a source language to a target language. That’s it. A program could compile a language to itself with functions inlined and it would still be a compiler. Transpiler is a dumb word made up to identify compilers that output valid source for a chosen language.

[cedilla]

Transpiler is a very useful word. It makes it clear that the translation doesn't happen from a high-level language to a low-level language as is usually implicitly assumed.

Arguing about the technical definition of compiler misses the point outside of a scientific paper. Connotations are more important than an arbitrary definition you happen to agreee with.