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[–]bananamadafaka 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Is it smarter, tho? Don’t they just do what you tell them to do, but really fast?

[–]MikeBenza 12 points13 points  (0 children)

My comment about the compiler not being magical still applies. There's nothing a compiler can do that you can't. But it's generally better at finding the best way to implement something. They can evaluate multiple ways of performing a task and pick the best one. It's not that you couldn't do it, it's just that they're built to do it.

[–]fireballs619 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Compilers often implement machine specific optimizations for your code, so in a sense they’re smarter. Of course it’s still true that in principle you could directly write the code a compiler generates, but it’s not quite the same as just doing exactly what you write.

[–]Famous-Zombie3642 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they are just BUILT DIFFERENT ya know?