Re: Compiler or interpreter?

Paul Biggar <paul.biggar@gmail.com>
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:36:56 +0100

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
Compiler or interpreter? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2010-06-13)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (2010-06-15)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2010-06-16)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2010-06-17)
re: Compiler or interpreter? ehog.hedge@googlemail.com (chris dollin) (2010-06-18)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? cr88192@hotmail.com (BGB / cr88192) (2010-06-18)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? paul.biggar@gmail.com (Paul Biggar) (2010-06-18)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? aek@bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) (2010-06-18)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2010-06-18)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? cr88192@hotmail.com (BGB / cr88192) (2010-06-19)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2010-06-19)
Re: Compiler or interpreter? cr88192@hotmail.com (BGB / cr88192) (2010-06-20)
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From: Paul Biggar <paul.biggar@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:36:56 +0100
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 10-06-043
Keywords: interpreter
Posted-Date: 18 Jun 2010 14:16:45 EDT

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 8:15 AM, chris dollin <ehog.hedge@googlemail.com> wrote:
> glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
>
>> So where do you draw a line between "true compiler" and "just an
>> interpreter?"
>
> There is no line.


You are of course correct. However, distinguishing between things that
are more-compilery and things that are less-compilery is useful. One
of the most challenging aspects of promoting phc
(http://phpcompiler.org) is the pervasive belief that the normal PHP
interpreter already has a compiler. In fact, it has a bytecode
compiler, but PHP is certainly interpreted. By contrast, phc compiles
to native code.


In nearly all online discussions of compilation and dynamic scripting
languages, this distinction has never been clear, and it seems to
truly confuse non-experts (who invariably believe that compilers are
black-magic anyway). Since non-experts associate the word "compiler"
with speed, they believe that almost anything which is technically a
compiler must be fast. Since scripting languages implementers have
largely ignored the last 40 years of compiler research, this cannot be
a good thing.


Paul


--
Paul Biggar
paul.biggar@gmail.com


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