greglindahl

Thank you! I have the same amount of snark now as the top comment, i.e. none that I can tell. It would be nice to have a conversation about this topic that didn't involve me being downvoted.

Thanks for pointing out that the other choice is perhaps technically more accurate -- I'm getting a lot of downvotes for pointing that out.

The Internet is often more like a bar brawl than a reasoned conversation.

I'm glad you're not trying to be a confrontational jerk. I'm all for disagreeing politely.

The project in which I worked on a C++-to-C translator didn't call it a compiler, it called it a source-to-source translator. It was a CS project in a CS department funded by the NSF. I have read the Dragon Book, and would be surprised if the authors would consider an interpreter, assembler, or a linker to be a compiler.

So yeah. I don't expect you to agree with my opinion, but I do appreciate it that you're trying to avoid being confrontational jerk.

I once worked on a source-to-source translator from C++ to C. In that era, that was the common term for that kind of software. I think that's more clear than "transpiler".

However, what we're talking about here is closer to TeX than cfront-to-c or even TypeScript-to-Javascript.

CS history has a long history of similar pieces of software being not called compilers.

Normal CS jargon has "assemblers" and "linkers", both of which might appear to be compilers according to this dictionary definition.

CS history also includes things like TeX, which formats text for a variety of outputs, and was rarely called a compiler.

Web browsers often include a JIT compiler for Javascript, but their text formatting system isn't usually called a compiler.

Thank you for posting the non-computer definition of the word. I was aware of that before I posted.

A large fraction of the words I use in physics and math are not used the same way, within the field, as the generic dictionary definition.

I'm a bit confused by the use of the word "compiler" to refer to something that turns markdown into html.

I expect the ministry of food science and the ministry of drug science to be scientific. That's quite different from what you're talking about.

I have noticed that your comment is quite typical for people who want to say that we live in a post-truth world. There are certainly problems, but one solution is to double down on science.

Pointing out that someone is using silly language with pointless effect is not an "ad hominem attack": can you point out anyone who might be confused by what I said?

Your use of "my friend" is similar to the thing you're complaining about. I got what you mean. Bringing up "ad hominem" is dodging the real issue.

Another comment of yours: "utterly stupid bureaucracy"

The quote said "significant levels" -- before dismissing it as "doesn't really sound like a problem", you might want to look a little harder.

Thank you for elevating the discourse with phrases like "fucking global pandemic over this pointless red tape". A global pandemic is exactly when we should be thinking hard instead of trading insults.

If the question is "Is there a commercially-viable search engine that supports this feature", then the answer is "probably not".

Implementing this properly involves having your own search index. And that's pretty expensive.

It's entirely reasonable to assume that tests with high error rates cause problems for everyone, not just "groups of individuals who you know are going to make ..."

For example, a PhD biologist friend of mine agonized for months before she was willing to look at her personal 23-and-me results, after the FDA certified them as accurate enough to show to consumers.

It's a real problem for everyone.

I'm not sure why this comment is downvoted -- it's definitely true, and the FDA does care about stuff that people ingest even if they aren't supposed to.

[0] includes text like:

> In one case, the FDA said it had found significant levels of the carcinogen acetaldehyde in ethanol supplied by a company for use in hand sanitizer, according to a recent email exchange seen by Reuters.

Is anyone surprised that using fuel ethanol might not be a good idea for hand sanitizer?