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Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

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Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#11

Post by gmac »

writebetterc wrote: post #10
gmac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I would add to your definition, to make a distinction from the common usage of compilation, is that the target language is on an approximately equivalent level of abstraction to the source. So, for example, Rust -> machine code is not transpilation, but Rust -> C++ is. I think this is how the word is commonly understood, and it’s not useless (even if there’s no absolute standard of when it does or does not apply…

What value does the word have? When I'm writing a compiler, it doesn't matter whether I target C or asm, or Javascript, as my output language. I'll still write it the same way.

It gives you a better idea what a thing does?

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#12

Post by cygx »

writebetterc wrote: post #9
goranmoomin wrote: post #6

IMO: Transpilers are compilers, but not all compilers are transpilers. In my book, transpilers are compilers that consume a programming language and target human-readable code, to be consumed by another compiler or interpreter (either by itself, or to be integrated in other projects). i.e. the TypeScript compiler is a transpiler from TS to JS, the Nim compiler is a transpiler from Nim to C, and so on. I guess if you…

I'd probably say that "transpiler" is not a very useful word with that definition.

Why is it useless? 'Compiler' denotes the general category, within which exist various sub-categories:

For example, a 'native compiler' outputs machine code for the host system, a 'cross compiler' outputs machine code for a different system, a 'bytecode compiler' outputs a custom binary format (e.g. VM instructions), and a 'transpiler' outputs source code. These distinctions are meaningful.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#13

Post by writebetterc »

gmac wrote: post #11
writebetterc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What value does the word have? When I'm writing a compiler, it doesn't matter whether I target C or asm, or Javascript, as my output language. I'll still write it the same way.

It gives you a better idea what a thing does?

To me, it doesn't. If someone says "tsc is a transpiler", it gives me nothing actionable. If you do say "it transpiles to JS", then I've got something, but that could just be "compiles to JS". It doesn't really tell me how the thing is constructed either.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#14

Post by goranmoomin »

writebetterc wrote: post #9
goranmoomin wrote: post #6

IMO: Transpilers are compilers, but not all compilers are transpilers. In my book, transpilers are compilers that consume a programming language and target human-readable code, to be consumed by another compiler or interpreter (either by itself, or to be integrated in other projects). i.e. the TypeScript compiler is a transpiler from TS to JS, the Nim compiler is a transpiler from Nim to C, and so on. I guess if you…

I'd probably say that "transpiler" is not a very useful word with that definition.

I can’t see why — I do think that the word does convey some sort of useful meaning with the above definition.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#15

Post by kryptiskt »

gmac wrote: post #8
nrinaudo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of compiler i learned was “takes some code, translate it to semantically equivalent code in a different language (which might be machine language, bytecode…)”. This is also used in PLaI, a respected learning resource: https://www.plai.org/ I think this is a pretty acceptable definition, and yes, it does make the term transpiler a little useless.

What I would add to your definition, to make a distinction from the common usage of compilation, is that the target language is on an approximately equivalent level of abstraction to the source. So, for example, Rust -> machine code is not transpilation, but Rust -> C++ is. I think this is how the word is commonly understood, and it’s not useless (even if there’s no absolute standard of when it does or does not apply…

One of the problems is that you might not use the target language at the equivalent level of abstraction. For example, C is a popular target language, but the C emitted may be very unidiomatic and nothing like human consumable code, it's not all that unusual that a language compiles all code to one big C function where the function calls in the language are jumps, which is a way to get around the limitations of the C calling conventions and stack.

The same thing applies to compilation to Javascript, the resulting code may use a tiny subset of the language.

I don't like the word transpiler, because there is nothing useful about the distinction (unless you count people using it to denigrate compilers that doesn't target traditional machine code).

I could see the case of using it as a name when the transformation is reversible, like you could probably turn Javascript back into Coffeescript.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#16

Post by jasode »

Whenever someone argues the uselessness or redundancy of a particular word, a helpful framework to understand their perspective is "Lumpers vs Splitters" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters

An extreme caricature example of a "lumper" would just use the word "computer" to label all Turing Complete devices with logic gates. In that mindset, having a bunch of different words like "mainframe", "pc", "smartphone", "game console", "FPGA", etc are all redundant because they're all "computers" which makes the various other words pointless.

On the other hand, the Splitters focus on the differences and I previously commented why "transpiler" keeps being used even though it's "redundant" for the Lumpers : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28602355

We're all Lumpers vs Splitters to different degrees for different topics. A casual music listener who thinks of orchestral music as background sounds for the elevator would be "lump" both Mozart and Bach together as "classical music". But an enthusiast would get irritated and argue "Bach is not classical music, it's Baroque music. Mozart is classical music."

The latest example of this I saw was someone complaining about the word "embedding" used in LLMs. They were asking ... if an embedding is a vector, why didn't they just re-use the word "vector"?!? Why is there an extra different word?!? Lumpers-vs-splitters.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#17

Post by jchw »

Transpilers are compilers that translate from one programming language to the other. I am not 100% sure where these "lies" come from, but it's literally in the name, it's clearly a portmanteau of translating compiler... Where exactly are people thinking the "-piler" suffix comes from?

Yes, I know. You could argue that a C compiler is a transpiler, because assembly language is generally considered a programming language. If this is you, you have discovered that there are sometimes concepts that are not easy to rigorously define but are easy for people to understand. This is not a rare phenomenon. For me, the difference is that a transpiler is intending to target a programming language that will be later compiled by another compiler, and not just an assembler. But, it is ultimately true that this definition is still likely not 100% rigorous, nor is it likely going to have 100% consensus. Yet, people somehow know a transpiler when they see one. The word will continue to be used because it ultimately serves a useful purpose in communication.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#18

Post by merlinthegreen »

I don't really understand the reasoning in the article. Nobody argues that orange is a meaningless word just because it's not wrong to call an orange a fruit.

Sure, a transpiler is a specialized form of compiler. However that doesn't mean it's not much clearer to describe a transpiler using the more specific name. As such recommending someone replace "compiler" with "transpiler" (when appropriate) does not mean using compiler is wrong. It simply means that, outside of some very niche-interest poetry, using transpiler is better!

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#19

Post by gmac »

writebetterc wrote: post #10
gmac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I would add to your definition, to make a distinction from the common usage of compilation, is that the target language is on an approximately equivalent level of abstraction to the source. So, for example, Rust -> machine code is not transpilation, but Rust -> C++ is. I think this is how the word is commonly understood, and it’s not useless (even if there’s no absolute standard of when it does or does not apply…

What value does the word have? When I'm writing a compiler, it doesn't matter whether I target C or asm, or Javascript, as my output language. I'll still write it the same way.

OK, but words are not only for compiler-writers. As someone who encounters your compiler, if it targets an output language at a similar level as the input language it will give me a headstart in understanding what it does if I see it referred to as a transpiler rather than simply a compiler.

Overall, I find this discussion very odd. It seems like a kind of deletionism for the dictionary. I mean, what's the use of the word 'crimson'? Anything that's crimson is also just 'red'. Why keep 'large' when we have 'big'? You could delete a large percentage of English words by following this line of thinking.

Re: Transpiler, a Meaningless Word (2023)

#20

Post by [deleted] »

writebetterc wrote: post #9
goranmoomin wrote: post #6

IMO: Transpilers are compilers, but not all compilers are transpilers. In my book, transpilers are compilers that consume a programming language and target human-readable code, to be consumed by another compiler or interpreter (either by itself, or to be integrated in other projects). i.e. the TypeScript compiler is a transpiler from TS to JS, the Nim compiler is a transpiler from Nim to C, and so on. I guess if you…

I'd probably say that "transpiler" is not a very useful word with that definition.

[deleted]
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