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Why an interpreter and not a compiler?
by yakubin 5y ago
Why an interpreter and not a compiler?
- jlokier 5y agoBecause you only intend to run it once, on one input, and ad-hoc interpreters are usually simpler to write than compilers.
- codeflo 5y agoSuch a one-off Haskell interpreter might even get away without or with less rigorous type checking.
- choeger 5y agoAn interpreter omits the target architecture/format question and thus is more portable than a compiler. Of course, you could compile to a higher-level language, for instance directly to C. But that's usually still a complication that only gives you performance. And performance is something you probably don't need during bootstrapping.