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 code that the computer actually runs is called machine code. And if you have a very simple computer, you can program directly in machine code.
But for anything other than the simplest kind of computer or the simplest kind of program, it’s simply not efficient.
So you can create a language that makes it easier. And this is what we did, and it was called Assembly. ~~Assembly basically lumps common operations and sets of operations and makes them more comprehensible at a higher level.~~ It basically created what are known as “mnemonics” which are more easily intelligible by people, that map to machine code instructions.
To take a set of assembly instructions and convert them into machine code you need a program called an “assembler.” But, the first assembler had to have been built with machine code.
But even Assembly is fairly low level and only really suitable for simple programs. The more complex a program we want to make, the higher level language we want.
So people started making higher level languages. But this languages need to be converted into machine code which requires a compiler. The first compilers were built using the low level languages (such as Assembly) at the time. Once they were made, you could use existing higher level languages and compilers to make new ones.
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