[ordu]

> it's not compiling the input program in any meaningful way, but simply writing hard-coded logic into executable memory that it already knows the program intended to perform.

The program reads the logic from stdin and translates it into machine instructions. I can agree that there is not a lot of a freedom in what can be done, but I think it just means that the source language is not Turing complete. I don't believe that compiler needs to deal with a Turing complete language to claim the title "JIT compiler".

[dataflow]

> The program reads the logic from stdin and translates it into machine instructions. I can agree that there is not a lot of a freedom in what can be done, but I think it just means that the source language is not Turing complete. I don't believe that compiler needs to deal with a Turing complete language to claim the title "JIT compiler".

"Not Turing-complete" is quite the understatement.

A "compiler" is software that translates computer code from one programming language into another language. Not just any software that reads input and produces output.

The input language here is... not even a programming language to begin with. Literally all it can express is linear functions. My fixed-function calculator is more powerful than that! If this is a programming language then I guess everyone who ever typed on a calculator is a programmer too.

[ordu]

> A "compiler" is software that translates computer code from one programming language into another language.

Yes, of course.

> Literally all it can express is linear functions.

And why a language to express linear functions can't be a programming language?

> My fixed-function calculator is more powerful than that!

But it isn't compiling, it is interpreting, is it? So your fixed-function calculator is not a compiler, it is an interpreter. It is irrelevant how powerful it is. There are much even more powerful interpreters and less powerful compilers.

The example we see gets computer code in one language and translates it into machine instructions. Talking about 'understatement' you are adding to this definition more constraints and these are very fuzzy constraints on what counts as a programming language.

[tgv]

A compiler takes some language and translates it into something close(r) to the hardware. And that's what the OP does. And since it compiles in process and executed it too, it's JIT, as opposed to AOT.

These terms are not related to the complexity of the problem. The first compilers could only translate for formulas, hence FORTRAN.

[dataflow]

I'm not sure where you got your definition, but I basically copied Wikipedia's.

[Brian_K_White]

That's not compilation merely substitution.