---
title: Interpreters
---

## Interpreters

Interpreters are a kind of translator. Interpreters take source code - code written in JavaScript, Python, and other languages. Then they translate it into code the computer understands.

This translated code is [binary code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_code). It is nothing but 1s and 0s. Interpreters translate the source code line-by-line, while running the binary code. The program will run until the interpreter finds errors in the source code. Then it will stop translating/running the program and flag the errors.

To compare, compilers convert all the source code at once to binary code, then run the binary code.

#### More Information:
[Matt Adesanya's "A Gentler Introduction to Programming"](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-gentler-introduction-to-programming-707453a79ee8) compares compilers and interpreters, and introduces other basic programming concepts.

Some Interpreted Languages:
* [Python](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language))
* [JavaScript](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript)
* [Ruby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language))
* [Forth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_(programming_language))
* [Perl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl)