Interpreter vs Compiler: What’s the Difference?

🧠 Interpreter vs Compiler – What’s the Difference?

When we write code, the computer does not understand it directly.

Computers only understand machine language (0s and 1s).

So, programming languages use translators to convert human-readable code into machine-readable code.

There are two main types of translators:

• Interpreter
• Compiler

Let’s understand both in a very simple way 👇

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🔍 What is an Interpreter?

An interpreter reads and executes code line by line.

How it works:

1. Reads one line of code
2. Converts it to machine language
3. Executes it
4. Moves to the next line

If an error occurs, the program stops immediately.

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✅ Key Points of Interpreter

• Executes code line by line
• Slower execution
• Stops at the first error
• No executable file is created

🧑‍💻 Languages That Use Interpreter

• JavaScript
• Python
• PHP
• Ruby

Example (JavaScript):

js
console.log("Hello");
console.log(a); // error
console.log("World"); // this will not run