Platform independent processing of the source code is performed, such as lexical analysis, semantic analysis, syntax analysis, and platform independent optimization, and an intermediate representation of the source code is generated. This intermediate representation is carried forward into the next stage of processing, which is platform dependent processing. The intermediate representation undergoes machine specific analysis and an executable representation (i.e., executable code) of the source code for a particular platform is generated. However, the intermediate representation, which has not been converted to a machine specific representation, is included with the executable representation. The source code can essentially be ported to a different platform by extracting the intermediate representation and performing platform dependent processing on the intermediate representation. The extracted intermediate representation, which has already undergone platform independent processing, is processed for the target platform and an executable representation for the target platform is generated.