Quote:
Originally Posted by 709
Nobody inherently "understands" anything. Any information received by the senses is broken down into electrical synapses (that would be the on/off part) and "recompiled" into something our brain can react to, be it temperature, voice, pain, etc.
So, in my analogy, "high-level" code could be the sound of a bee buzzing nearby. My brain breaks down the input into electrical jolts, recompiles it, then triggers the appropriate action to my arm/hand to shoosh it away.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
In a sense, English compiles down to our truly native language the same way a programming language does to machine code.
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I'll try this line of reasoning out. For whatever reason I'm determined to be able to explain this to my friend
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mugge
Well, that's simple:
The compiler is a piece of software that in itself is is made up of binary code. It's capable of translating your high level language into a binary language that the CPU understands.
The CPU is a piece of hardware that only understands binary language. The CPU (along with the rest of the hardware) uses the binary code to execute software, such as a compiler.
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I tried something similar. Paraphrasing, I said "a compiler is just a piece of software written by humans because the computer can only follow explicit instructions. So we write code in a language devised by humans, feed it to a compiler which was written by humans, and once the compiler converts it to binary, it can be executed by the computer's hardware via electrical signals."
I don't remember his response but it didn't get the point across.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banana
One more point though I would hesitate to share if it's more likely to confuse: Even though all computer uses binary, how the CPU use binary is not universal, kind of akin to how Latin alphabet can be used among several languages but knowing the alpahbet does not enable you to understand the other languages.
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The whole "binary is an alphabet, not a language" thing came up once but I didn't expand upon it because I thought it would just be more confusing.