I see a lot about source codes being leaked and I’m wondering how it that you could make something like an exact replica of Super Mario Bros without the source code or how you can’t take the finished product and run it back through the compilation software?
The best and simplest explanation I’ve seen: The machine code tells the computer what to do while the source code tells the human why it’s doing it.
Your computer doesn’t need all the “why” information to run the game, so the compilation process gets rid of it. What you’re left with are instructions on exactly what computations to do, and that’s all the computer needs.
For example, you can see in the machine code that two numbers are being added together. What do those numbers mean and why are we adding them? The source code can tell you that this is code that controls movement, one of the numbers is a velocity, the other is the player’s current position.