Talk:Source-to-source compiler

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CoffeeScript?

Would coffee qualify as source-to-source compiler? It takes CoffeeScript as input and compiles it into JavaScript. It's intended to be a refinement of JavaScript, but it provides more than just a different syntax or shorthand notation. What about HAML, which is _only_ a shorthand, or SASS, which is an abstract form of CSS? None of these is really useful without conversion (though there seems to be an interpreter for CoffeScript in development), but they all differ significantly from their "target" language. -- 78.35.98.218 (talk) 13:48, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I think they qualify as source-to-source compilers, until they become a full flown language once they have their own interpreter/compiler that does not translate to another language (like CofeeScript will become). Another source-to-source compiler example is Lisaac's compiler which translate Lisaac code into C code. JnRouvignac (talk) 10:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete article

Hi! Since the terms “source-to-source compiler” and “transpiler” are neither well-defined (does the target language has to be similar or at the same level or only kinda more highlevel than assembly? What is about immediate languages? LLVM? C? C--? And what is special about it, compilation is always “trans” and “source-to-source” – source language → target language) nor distinguishable. I propose to delete both of them and mention such stuff (like compilers for porting to a new version or specific target languages) in the compiler-article mentioning that those terms are not well-defined. Opinions? --Chricho ∀ (talk) 14:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your suggestion. Both articles look of low quality and keeping the info you suggest is really what matters here. JnRouvignac (talk) 02:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree. "Transpiler" is not even an actual term of the art. The correct and only term is "compiler." Ohmantics (talk) 00:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Well, actually that isn't the case, "compiler" isn't the only term around no matter how widely it is used. "Translator" is also a correct term, and in my opinion we should see how to combine Translator (computing) and Source-to-source compiler articles into a single article. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:12, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think these should just be subsections in the compiler article and "Translator (computer science)" and "Source-to-source compiler" should redirect to that section in the compiler article. AadaamS (talk) 06:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Compiler article is already quite lengthy, so merging more content into it would be against WP:SIZESPLIT. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 06:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While the terms "source-to-source compiler" and "transpiler" are indeed not well defined, they are not useless either. When they are assumed to refer to compilers that translate from one high level language into another, a similar problem occurs, as the term 'high level language' isn't well defined either. There used to be talk of genrations (1st = machine code, 2nd = assembly, 3nd = imperative, 4th = declarative, 5th = AI based, self learning. While at generation 5 these terms were so frequently abused in marketing that they lost all value, I think the term "source-to-source compiler" is intuitively quite clear even though it isn't formally well defined. With the reference from 'transpiler' and a link from 'compiler' people will be able to find it. As for the term 'transpiler': due to the fact that most browsers only understand JavaScript natively (be it asm.js or anything like it), this term is becoming more common. In general this field is so dynamic that inevitably new terms emerge. I think in a medium like Wikipedia we should avoid marketing slang and hypes, but given the popularity of source to source compilation, we're not dealing with a hype here. Indeed the amount of info is too large to be joined with Translator (computing) because of WP:SIZESPLIT. Still people may look for information on source-to-source compilation and should be able to find it. So I think this article should be improved rather than deleted. Jacdeh (talk) 07:13, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

YACC and LEX

YACC (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler) and LEX both date to the early 1970s and would seem to be in this category. If you agree, that would be quite a bit earlier than the 1981 example said to be "one of the earliest examples..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:9300:5230:CCAC:B31F:393E:F59 (talk) 01:59, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Recursive transcompiling"

Wikipedia has another article that describes something called "recursive transcompiling," though I can't find any mentions of this phrase outside Wikipedia. Should the "Recursive transcompiling" article be merged into this article? Jarble (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Source is a Misnomer

Source-to-Source is a misnomer. Transpilers do not output source, despite that they output (potentially) human readable text.

Text input is also not guaranteed to be source, it could also be generated output.

"Source" is the thing you need to place under "source code control" because it is "original" and thus, cannot be reproduced mechanically.

So, the better term here is text-to-text compiler.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.74.137 (talk)

"Source-to-source compiler" is the correct name. A source-to-source compilers translates the source code of one programming to another. Its input is source code, and its output is source code. Jarble (talk) 17:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]