Tagged Questions

33
votes
13answers
9k views

How have languages influenced CPU design?

We are often told that the hardware doesn't care what language a program is written in as it only sees the compiled binary code, however this is not the whole truth. For example, consider the humble ...
12
votes
6answers
1k views

What came first, the compiler, or the source?

I'm curious about the birth of the compiler. How did programming begin? Did people first build hardware that recognized a certain set of commands, or did people define a language and then build ...