Since this thread has ... become what it is ... I may as well add a couple of details.
The widely-used compiler LLVM uses an intermediate representation of your code, called 'Bitcode'. In other words, it's not a simple case of compiling straight to object code. This feeds into some distinctions made between high level and low level languages in previous posts. I also wanted to comment on various things said about C by saying that there is no industry agreement about whether C is a high level or low level language. Mostly because those terms were never defined very clearly because it was obvious to every programmer what they were looking at. If the language included words which looked like human languages, it was a high level language. If it was based around acronyms and very short words like MOVE is was low level. C messed up the distinction and since then we've been running to keep up. Simon.
