Thread:SamwiseFilmore/@comment-25841881-20171204023045/@comment-25330335-20171208174800

A compiler is split up into a number of parts. The parser/lexer in the IDE doesn't even do code generation until you hit run (I would assume) and just runs the lexical analysis steps (which are not the hardest part of compilation). The dmd for example has it's frontend available, and there are different backends (gdc, ldc, dmd).