Everything Is a Compiler If You Squint

Once you learn to see the shape of a compiler, you cannot unsee it. A compiler takes a representation that is convenient for the author and transforms it, in verifiable stages, into a representation that is convenient for the executor. That is it. That is the whole idea.

Which means an ORM is a compiler from object graphs to SQL. A design system is a compiler from intent to markup. A meeting, on a good day, is a compiler from ambiguity to a decision. The stages are where correctness lives — and where it goes to die.