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Elixir is compiled, not interpreted.

• inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Compiled into bytecode to be interpreted by the Erlang (BEAM) VM.
  • erokar 7y ago
    Are we doing semantics now? Java is also compiled into bytecode, executed by the JVM. Do you consider Java an interpreted language also?
    • ralusek 7y ago
      I think most people consider Java to be an interpreted language, it's interpreted by JVM. It's obviously somewhere in between, in the same way that JIT languages are, but it's still not native.
      • didibus 7y ago
        Not sure about the BEAM, but Java isn't considered an interpreted language at all. First, discerning the compilation step to IR is relevant, which is why for example, Python can be compiled or interpreted. That distinction matters. Even though it is compiled to intermediate representation, it is still compiled. Now, with regards to the intermediate representation, Java Byte Code is also not interpreted. Java Byte Code is compiled to native machine code either Just in Time by the JVM, or Ahead of Time by the SubstrateVM. Both of these make it a compiled language. An interpreted language never gets translated into native machine code, it gets executed by a native interpreter, and that's very different. It is more akin to using a language where you read and parse texts, and based on the text, you might execute one or more things. Now if that parsing to execution branching is powerful enough to allow Turing complete behavior, you have yourself a full blown interpreted computer language. This is not what happens in the JVM. The JVM translates Java Byte Code to native machine code Just in Time, and then the native code is run.
        • true_religion 7y ago
          Java is an interpreted language because you always need a JVM to run it. I even if you distribute the runtime with your code as one package, that’s just an artificial distinction. Regardless, interpreted does not mean bad, or poor performance for your task. It’s a technical notion. Most people would say Python is interpreted, even if you are only running compile python bytecode on a JIT like PyPy. That’s exactly the same situation as Java.
          • TylerE 7y ago
            There is nothing about Java that requires a VM. That is just how Sun decided to implement it. GCJ, for instance, allows AOT compilation of a Java program that requires no JVM.
          • didibus 7y ago
            Java is compiled to Java byte code. It cannot be interpreted in its source form. There's nothing preventing it to be, but as far as I know, there are no interpreters for it. Python on the other hand can be interpreted from source, and that's the default behavior, making Python an interpreted language. This makes Java a compiled language, even though it is compiled to machine code for a machine that doesn't exist. Java Byte Code is an assembly language, and in fact, Sun had at one point machines that were natively using Java Byte Code instruction sets. Now Java Byte Code is trickier. You could consider it to be interpreted or compiled or both. It is fair to say that in general it is interpreted, but it is just as fair to say it is in general compiled. What matters most though is to understand that modern JVMs make use of a JIT compiler and optional AOT compilers. In the latter mode, you can compile Java Byte Code to native machine executables ahead of time or pre-runtime and no JVM beyond that point is required. So you can distribute the app as a self-contained executable. In most cases though, this will be less performant in the average and peak performance, but it will speed up the worst case, such as start time. In the former mode, the JVM will analyze runtime behavior and based on the frequency of use of various code paths, it will either compile the code to native machine code (cache the compiled code), and then run the freshly compiled code block, or it will choose to interpret the byte code directly. This allows aggressive optimization from information which is only available or easily available at runtime when performing compilation.
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• datashaman 7y ago
  It can be both. .ex files are compiled, .exs files are interpreted.