# Questions about Compiler and Compiling Modules

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/questions-about-compiler-and-compiling-modules/19591>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [January 13, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/questions-about-compiler-and-compiling-modules/19591 "2019-01-13T17:55:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2019, 11:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/questions-about-compiler-and-compiling-modules/19591/21 "2019-01-16T11:30:05Z")

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> [@yuyichao](#):
>
> I don’t find whether things are compiled to be a very useful concept since after all, the CPU is always executing native instructions and it’s **what** instructions it execute that’s important.

That’s an interesting way of looking at it. I guess in this context, one could still define “compilation” as a “one-time transformation that makes subsequent calls of the same code with similar inputs run faster”. Here, of course, “same” and “similar” are the key terms — for Julia, “similar” is “same type”.

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**Author:** ![jekbradbury](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jekbradbury/32/953_2.png) [@jekbradbury](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jekbradbury)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/questions-about-compiler-and-compiling-modules/19591/22 "2019-01-17T00:55:19Z")

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The intro to [this post](http://blog.sigfpe.com/2009/05/three-projections-of-doctor-futamura.html) provides another way of thinking about the difference between interpreters and compilers.

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