what is a compiler

what is it? i know you type pretty c++ or w/e code and it converts it into computer language so computer knows waht we mean, how do they differ for different languages asides that they convert two different languages? (its kinda hard to explain what im asking) like if all it does is change what we do to computer language for any programming language, why can't we have 1 universal programming language

Yeah, I know him. I also know he liked ALGOL 60. The guy's famous for his algorithms, the rest is tangental. Besides, the proper quote is (and it comes from SICP, unless you prove otherwise):

Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

Notice the difference between "should" and "are"? Okay, I take back what I said, you'd fail as an English major.

This is pretty fucking obvious, dude. Nobody yet has refuted what I said. If a language is beautiful but doesn't do shit, nobody will use it. If a language is unreadable but does shit (like, oh, 1's an 0's) people will use it. Helloooo?