I know this is a "me" thing, but I've come to the point of view that making bits in a different order (eg: classic "compilation" of one language into another) is a very useful side effect of compilers. My main love of them now is as a complete suite of tests with "100%" (some will argue this) code coverage of types, in the languages where that matters. You called functions with what you thought you did, you're getting back what you think you are, you're doing operations on things that actually support them, etc.