To be fair, this isn't that different from things we'd do back in the day.
replyI use to write BBS software in BASIC on the C64, and one of the things we'd do is use a "compiler" that would do some optimizations. What this allowed was being able to write a program too big to actually run, but the optimized version of it could.
I wish I could share more details and be less hand-wavy... but it turns out the 80's were a long time ago and I just haven't given it much thought since then (at least until I saw your comment).
Computer magazines of the era also did that with C64 listings because they were such a pain to type as is. They usually distributed a tool to type your program in first, and then published much more legible and plain text (non-PETSCII) code listings instead.
replyRGC Basic: https://retrogamecoders.com/rgc-basic/
reply"Commodore BASIC–style interpreter written in C, but with modern conveniences."
Yeah seeing GOSUB and no line numbers was an instant warning light.
replyI had briefly thought that C64 could use variables with GOTO/GOSUB. Sinclair BASIC could do that for example.
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