Compilation
Compilers enabled the development of programs that are machine-independent. Before the development of FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator), the first higher-level language, in the 1950s, machine-dependent assembly language was widely used. While assembly language produces more reusable and relocatable programs than machine code on the same architecture, it has to be modified or rewritten if the program is to be executed on different computer hardware architecture.
With the advance of high-level programming languages that followed FORTRAN, such as COBOL, C, and BASIC, programmers could write machine-independent source programs. A compiler translates the high-level source programs into target programs in machine languages for the specific hardwares. Once the target program is generated, the user can execute the program.
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Famous quotes containing the word compilation:
“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)