I think ceyusa was referring to the elision of bytecode as an intermediate step. Interestingly though, my assertion that V8 kept around the AST was wrong: it k

I think ceyusa was referring to the elision of bytecode as an intermediate step. Interestingly though, my assertion that V8 kept around the AST was wrong: it keeps around the source, and re-parses as needed. So maybe it's JavaScript that is the new bytecode now...