The CodeWarrior IDE allows compilation of many different programming languages. The IDE takes a modular approach to compiling code by using various plug-in compilers.

Plug-ins are basically small, loadable code modules that allow the IDE to have many different compilers at its disposal. For example, there are plug-in compilers for C, C++, Pascal, Java, and assembly language.

Plug-in compilers usually have default build-target settings to help the CodeWarrior IDE decide which project files a plug-in handles. During regular compile and link operations, the IDE assigns files to the proper plug-in automatically.