> So it's a compiler which incorporates a compiler? Compilerception much?
No, what I meant is that the concept of a JIT compiler incorporates both a runtime and a compiler.
> Seriously though: Can I tell V8 to compile my JS and tell me any errors found before I deploy it to production and runtime? Yes or no?
That's not the job of a compiler. It's a feature of compilation, but a compiler does not by definition have to compile your code before deployment. What would you be compiling the JS to? If you're wanting to check your syntax, your IDE should be able to do that, or you can use a compile-to-JS language like TypeScript. Yes, it's dumb I know - that's one of the many reasons I use TypeScript.
> Just because V8 internally JIT-compiles the JS-code to something eventually executable which the machine can run doesn't change the fact that it's interpreter and execution-engine (also known as a "runtime") for Javascript code.
You seem to be hung up on the idea of a compiler as something that checks your code is correct. It isn't - that functionality is incidental to the compiler's job, because it can't translate invalid syntax into whatever destination language it compiles to.
> Just like Python and all those other platforms you listed as not being "compilers" (in which case you're absolutely right).
I did no such thing. That was someone else. Any language which internally uses a bytecode representation is a JIT compiler, including Python, Java, and PHP. You could argue I'm being nitpicky, given that pretty much all performant interpreted languages use a bytecode representation - it's true in a sense, but I'm just trying to highlight that you seem to have a misunderstanding of what a compiler's job is.