Compiler

A compiler is software that translates computer code written in one programming language into another, most often translating a high-level programming language into a low-level language such as assembly language, object code or machine code to create an executable program. Grace Hopper's team at Remington Rand wrote the compiler for the A-0 programming language in May 1952 and coined the term compiler to describe it, and Alick Glennie's Autocode compiler for the Manchester Mark I, completed the same year, is considered by some historians the first compiled programming language. A team led by John Backus at IBM developed FORTRAN between 1954 and 1957, usually regarded as the first high-level programming language, and compilers have since become the standard tool for turning human-written source code into a form a computer can execute directly.