What is an Interactive Compiler?

A Compiler is a program that converts a human readable programming language like BASIC into a language understood by a computer. Once converted, the program is no longer readable by a human and is not easy if not impossible to convert back to the original human readable source file. However, the compiled program runs fast.

An Interpreter is a program that directly executes a human readable programming language directly. Interpreters tends to run the program slowly since it is continuously reading and parsing the source file to execute the program. However, interpreters offer interactivity where no separate compile step is necessary and offers the ability to execute commands immediately (like for examining program variables when the program is temporarily stopped like for debugging).

An Incremental Compiler converts or compilers each line of a source file into an internal language understood by the computer as it is entered. It offers the advantages of a compiler (speed) and the advantages of an interpreter (interactivity).

An Interactive Compiler is technically any programming environment that is interactive, anything from a pure interpreter to an incremental compiler, but not a full a compiler. What I am referring to as an Interactive Compiler is one that its internal language is in the form that is easily converted back into the original source lines (though not necessary exactly as typed) and in a form that the computer can run efficiently without doing an time wasting interpretation (which is done during the creation of the internal code and not during run time as in an interpreter).