Hello community, I have a question,(perhaps a dum question). A compiler converts human readable code(source code) into machine code (ones and zeros). But how was the first compiler created if there was no compiler before. I might have the wrong concept (I will not be surprise at all if i do) but could some try to briefly explain how a compiler is created? how could some write a compiler form scratch. e.g. Richard Stallman? Any help will be apreciated (if this was a dum ? do not be so mean! ;-) any way, thank you.

From memory(of what I read prior) the first computer programs were programmed strictly in binary and entered either by punch card/s or with manual switches. Consider before you have a compiler you must have font and text writing capabilities, so in short, and without any further reasurch, I'd say the first compiler would not have been compiled, but crafted in binary. Of course this is from memory and without doing any searches so I could be mistaken.

The first industrial compiler and synbolic programming language was developed by Backus in the 1954 for the FORTRAN language to run on the IBM 704 system. Previously there were limited and system bound compilers higly experimental and of limited usage. Keep in mind at that time computers were complex machines operated via punched cards and displays were in the realm of sci-fi. In the early 50s there were assembly languages however, to translate operation codes from symbols to binary and very raw system routines to perform I/O operations. Building on that FORTRAN, aimed to scientific processing (FORmula TRANslator) was designed and implemented. It was a big hit as FORTRAN is still alive today. Modern compilers are developed using other languages and existing software as building blocks.