[boricj]

The linker stitches object files together, regardless of their origin. If a compiler directly outputs a finalized artifact, then it would be impossible to add code written in other programming languages into the mix unless the compiler also doubles as a linker.

[tester756]

> then it would be impossible to add code written in other programming languages into

Is this really that important that we cannot skip this requirement?

[raddan]

You might be surprised how often multi-language programs appear. Basically all of modern day Python for starters. But also a number of important numerical libraries for C are actually written in Fortran.

[jay-barronville]

> You might be surprised how often multi-language programs appear. Basically all of modern day Python for starters. But also a number of important numerical libraries for C are actually written in Fortran.

In my experience, the most common use case is C-based programs with some C++ sprinkled in (especially if you need the C code to be compiled exclusively by a C compiler in order to maintain C semantics).

[tester756]

I thought it is done by ffi