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?
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The compiled software is also just data stored on the computer, with the difference that it can be understood by the computer as something that can be executed. So the simple answer is – nothing stops you from creating such data without a compiler. Hence you could create a simple compiler (for a simple language) “on paper” and feed it into the memory one way or another as is. You can then preferably use that language/compiler to write a better compiler for possibly a new language that be enables a human to write programs more efficiently.
And this is pretty much exactly what happened.
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