[wvenable]

You can continue to argue the point but that goes against every single definition of compilation that exists. Compilation is a transformation of programming language into another form. For example, taking `3+x*(2+y)` and transforming it into a series of byte codes, machine language instructions, ASTs, or even C code would be compilation.

The BASIC interpreter doesn't recognize `3+x*(2+y)` nor does it compile it instead it evaluates that expression using a pair of stacks. You've expanded the definition of compilation to cover almost all computation. It's compilers all the way down to the electrons.

[eichin]

No problem calling it parsing, but yeah, "compilation" feels like a huge stretch. And they didn't do recursive descent - just tokenizing for compactness (when you only have 4k or 16k of RAM you do things like that) - you could still get syntax errors at runtime. In some interpreters it also served to normalize abbreviations to save typing.

[WalterBright]

Well, all my compilers use recursive descent for expressions, meaning the stack is used to maintain the current state. Whether you evaluate it while doing this or produce an IR is a trivial difference.

[wvenable]

It might be a trivial difference but it's literally the thing that makes something a compiler. It should make sense. How a piece of software works doesn't make it a compiler or not; it's input and output of the software that defines it as a compiler. That's true of almost any broad category of software.