And determinism isn’t particularly helpful with compilers. We expect adherence to some sort of spec. A compiler that emits radically different code depending on how much whitespace you put between tokens could still be completely deterministic, but it’s not the kind of tool we want to be using.

Determinism is a red herring. What matters is how rigorous the relationship is between the input and the output. Compilers can be used in automated pipelines because that relationship is rigorous.