Answer from cs61c-bg (Spencer ahrens 16187781) for Question 2
I don't understand, this is what gcc that we use does, taking .c files and turning them into .out files.  Going the otherway, I could see how it would be different - if gcc outputted the assembly code, the programmer would have the chance to review and improve the code at every step, optimizing in even more ways than the compiler could with better memory management or register usage.