Why don’t programmers have to program in machine code? Recall that these are machine instructions are binary code. That is, binary digits that represent the program in such a way that the processor can run it. Fortunately we have such things as assemblers, compilers and interpreters. These do the translation into binary that the computer can understand and run.

Assemblers What do they do? Translate assembly code into machine code. Features Each different type of machine/processor requires an assembler of its own (e.g. ARM).

Compilers What do they do? Translate a program written in a high level language (e.g. Python, C) into assembly language or machine code (the executable file). Take an assembly language program and converts each mnemonic into its binary equivalent. Features Checks for errors before the exe is produced. Produce final software for distribution. Can be slow to compile. End user/competitor is unable to hack into the code. (Don’t believe it, but this is ‘the’ answer expected on the test.)

Interpreters What do they do? Translates one line at a time at run time (e.g. Java). Features Slower than compilers. But can be executed straight away. No object code generated. Often used when developing new programs. End users can easily see the code.