compiler
termprogramming
A program that translates source code into something a machine can execute - a category Grace Hopper both built and named.
It is worth remembering that this had to be argued for. The idea that a machine could usefully translate human-written text into instructions was not obvious in 1952, and the objection was that a programmer should write the instructions. The compiler is also where trust becomes circular: Ken Thompson's Turing lecture showed that a compiler can insert a backdoor into programs and into future compilers, so inspecting source proves nothing about the binary. Reproducible builds exist to close that loop.
Also known as: compilation