diff --git a/modules/compiler_vm/compiler_client.pl b/modules/compiler_vm/compiler_client.pl
index 5e614bbe..b2460dc0 100755
--- a/modules/compiler_vm/compiler_client.pl
+++ b/modules/compiler_vm/compiler_client.pl
@@ -1,19 +1,34 @@
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 
+# compiler_client.pl connects to compiler_server.pl hosted at PeerAddr/PeerPort below
+# and sends a nick, language and code, then retreives and prints the compilation/execution output.
+#
+# this way we can run the compiler virtual machine on any remote server.
+
 use warnings;
 use strict;
 
 use IO::Socket;
 
 my $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(
-  PeerAddr => '71.93.78.61', 
+  PeerAddr => '127.0.0.1', 
   PeerPort => 9000, 
-  Proto => 'tcp') || die "Cannot create socket: $!";
+  Proto => 'tcp');
+
+if(not defined $sock) {
+  print "Fatal error compiling: $!; try the !cc2 command instead\n";
+  die $!;
+}
 
 my $nick = shift @ARGV;
-my $lang = shift @ARGV;
 my $code = join ' ', @ARGV;
 
+my $lang = "C99";
+
+if($code =~ s/-lang=([^ ]+)//) {
+  $lang = uc $1;
+}
+
 print $sock "compile:$nick:$lang\n";
 print $sock "$code\n";
 print $sock "compile:end\n";