Generating class files is an optional compilation mode in Clojure. You can also load bytecode and define classes without involving files on the JVM, which is wh

Generating class files is an optional compilation mode in Clojure. You can also load bytecode and define classes without involving files on the JVM, which is what eval (used by the repl) does https://clojure.org/reference/compilation https://clojure.org/reference/compilation (also see the eval definition at https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/master/src/clj/clojure/core.clj#L3211 https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/master/src/clj/cloju... - it calls into the compiler). The JVM could still just interpret the JVM bytecode instead of JIT compiling first of course. Python is also technically compiled like this