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Not compiling but Windows ships with VBScript, JS, and Powershell, all with the ability to interface with the OS. I used VBScript for the first time a while ago to make a step in a batch process and it was pretty convenient.

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Also every release of the .NET framework to my knowledge ships with the "csc.exe" and "vbc.exe" compilers. So C# and Visual Basic.NET are available out of the box with modern versions of Windows as well. No IDE support, but you could whip up quick hello worlds with notepad without breaking a sweat.

And MacOS comes with Perl, Python, and Ruby in /usr/bin. Plus several UNIX shells with scripting ability.

Didn't a lot of computers back then just come with a BASIC shell, not any compilers?

Right. But we are talking about how modern computers come with development systems too. While I'm sure the percentage of hobbyist programmers on modern machines is far smaller than in the 8-bit era, it's not like modern machines don't come with at least some development tools too.

Yeah, that was my point. Saying it has to be a compiler is arbitrary.

It should be a compiler because that's the best way to write efficient, non-bloat software with your computer.

All the other methods encourage bloat.

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