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It is reasonable to say this is a tradeoff. However, one of the costs is having the VM structure depend on the language structure, which kind of a software engi
by joe_the_user 7y ago
It is reasonable to say this is a tradeoff. However, one of the costs is having the VM structure depend on the language structure, which kind of a software engineering no-no. But yes, tradeoffs always happen.
- munificent 7y ago> which kind of a software engineering no-no. Optimization along any axis (code size, simplicity, compile-time performance, runtime performance, memory size, etc.) always involves some level of violating software engineering norms. One way to think of software engineering is that it's the practice of optimizing long-term developer velocity. Any practice that optimizes other factors generally does so at the expense of that. That's OK. Meta-software engineering is about knowing when long-term maintainability is the right factor to optimize for. :)
- kazinator 7y agoThat is really only a political no-no. The issue is that if your VM takes off in popularity, some people get upset that it's a poor fit for their favorite language. Technically, it's perfectly fine for a VM to be designed so that the semantic gap is small between it and the intended language family.