Compiler

The translator that turns human-readable source into machine instructions — the invention that made programming scalable.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Grace Hopper's A-0 (1952) was the first compiler; Backus's Fortran made compiling mainstream.
• Compilers run in phases: lexing, parsing, optimization, code generation.
• The 1950s fear was that compiled code could never match hand-written assembly — Fortran proved otherwise.