Eli5: If a compiler is a program that converts your code into binary form for the computer, unless my understanding is incorrect and it isn’t just a program, wouldn’t the compiler also need a compiler to run it since how do you run a program without a compiler?
In: 360
Yup.
The first programs had to be written in machine code. Just a sequence of numbers. They’d write in Assembly language, and convert by hand. Then they got computers to do the conversion.
Once you have computers to do that, you can write a compiler or an interpreter for a more complex language. Eventually someone will write their own compiler in the higher level language.
Once you have at least one high level language, it makes things a lot easier.
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