[greglindahl]

CS history has a long history of similar pieces of software being not called compilers.

Normal CS jargon has "assemblers" and "linkers", both of which might appear to be compilers according to this dictionary definition.

CS history also includes things like TeX, which formats text for a variety of outputs, and was rarely called a compiler.

Web browsers often include a JIT compiler for Javascript, but their text formatting system isn't usually called a compiler.

[jholman]

I wrote a long comment, and immediately deleted it because I'm trying to avoid being a confrontational jerk.

I disagree with your assessment of "normal CS jargon". I'm wondering if you mean "normal jargon in the C/C++ community".

In my experience with compiler textbooks and computer science professors who specialize in compilers, compilers are any formal-language-to-formal-language translator. Yes, sometimes sub-types of compilers have specific names, but they are all compilers.

Is there one word for the subject material of the dragon book? I think there is, and I think that word is "compiler". Including source-to-source translators, including assemblers, including preprocessors, including linkers.

[greglindahl]

I'm glad you're not trying to be a confrontational jerk. I'm all for disagreeing politely.

The project in which I worked on a C++-to-C translator didn't call it a compiler, it called it a source-to-source translator. It was a CS project in a CS department funded by the NSF. I have read the Dragon Book, and would be surprised if the authors would consider an interpreter, assembler, or a linker to be a compiler.

So yeah. I don't expect you to agree with my opinion, but I do appreciate it that you're trying to avoid being confrontational jerk.

[jesselawson]

Thanks for this. I did spend a lot of time pondering over whether I wanted to use the word "compiler" or "interpreter," but in the end it was my CS students who encouraged me to use the term that more people would recognize than the one that is technically more accurate.

This is my first time sharing one of my tutorials on HN so I am still feeling out where I will slip and where I can slide.