Translating Our Source Code
Remember, computer only understand machine code. There are two way to translating programming language to machine code :
- Compiling the source code
- Interpreting the source code
Compiling
Compiling code means you have program called compiler that will translate your source code into different files contains machine code, the result is executable file (.exe).
Some languages that used compiler to translate their source code are C, C#, and Swift.
Interpreting
Interpreting code means you have program called interpreter that will processing the source code on the spot.
Languages that using interpreter for example are Javascript, Ruby, and Phyton.
Difference
There are some different when compiling or interpreting source code :
| Compiler | Interpreter |
|---|---|
| Takes entire program as input | Takes single instruction as input |
| Often faster | Often slower |
| Source code not shared | Source code is shared |
| Errors are displayed after entire program is checked | Errors are displayed for every instruction interpreted (if any) |
| Have "ready to run" machine code | Interpreter required on each computer |
Intermediate Approach
you can use intermediate approach that combine these two, compiling into intermediate languange, that faster to interpreting
For example, Java using this method for their languange.