A motion control system comprising a source application program, a target device, a parser, an emitter, a program engine, and a parser interface. The source application program is defined by a source language specification. The target device creates motion under control of application programs defined by a target language specification. The parser component contains logic for converting application programs defined by the source language specification into a generic format. An emitter component containing logic for converting application programs in the generic format into application programs defined by the target language specification. The program engine component directs the parser component to convert the source application program into a generic application program. The program engine component further directs the emitter component to convert the generic application program into a target application program defined by the target language specification. The parser interface defines communications between the parser component and the program engine component.