I depend on the JVM in my mind traslates to "my target is the JVM" You are "dependent" if you want on the RunTime (rt.jar). The way it was explained to me, and

I depend on the JVM in my mind traslates to "my target is the JVM" You are "dependent" if you want on the RunTime (rt.jar). The way it was explained to me, and the model which I sticking to in my mind is: Abstract Machine/language + RunTime = Level of the onions of a computer. Assembly/CPU + libc Bytecode/JVM + rt.jar The language manipulates the resources provided by the machine (registers, stack-machine etc etc). My recollections are fading though - but I found this model to be good enough to explain me well how a computer works.