5 ms·

Languages aren't interpreted, implementations are.

by yoro46 4y ago

jojobas 4y ago
It's safe to call a language for which there's no production compiler an interpreted language.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Well, that’s neither Python nor Ruby. Both compile their code, and can do so ahead of time too.
  - FridgeSeal 4y ago
    None of the major Python implementations do any AoT compilation. Python is probably the poster-child language of "interpreted". It's run, line-by-line through an interpreter, and turned into byte-code, which is executed by the VM. There's no compilation, and in CPython, very little optimisation. PyPy is obviously different on that last point as it's a JIT, but the larger point still stands.
    - segfaultbuserr 4y ago
      > It's run, line-by-line through an interpreter, and turned into byte-code, which is executed by the VM. Just a small technical correction: you can pre-complie to .py source files to .pyc bytecode files without waiting for the interpreter to do it line by line, many distro package managers already perform this step automatically when a package is installed. Though you're right in the sense that it doesn't really improve performance, CPython itself is the slowest part, not bytecode generation. > There's no compilation, and in CPython, very little optimisation. +1. This was actually a deliberate design choice [0]. Guido van Rossum himself said, "Python is about having the simplest, dumbest compiler imaginable." CPython was designed for ease of learning and use, it was never designed to be a high-performance language. Pure Python code (without C extensions like NumPy) can never be good at number-crunching tasks. [0] https://nullprogram.com/blog/2019/02/24/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2019/02/24/
      - falcolas 4y ago
        There are still some basic optimizations the Python compiler makes. It has, for example, a keyhole optimizer, and some built in optimizations around integer objects to name two. It’s nothing too fancy, but it still does the basics.
    - wiseowise 4y ago
      GraalVM?

Languages aren't interpreted, implementations are.

by yoro46 4y ago

Languages aren't interpreted, implementations are.

jojobas 4y ago

It's safe to call a language for which there's no production compiler an interpreted language.

falcolas 4y ago
Well, that’s neither Python nor Ruby. Both compile their code, and can do so ahead of time too.
- FridgeSeal 4y ago
  None of the major Python implementations do any AoT compilation. Python is probably the poster-child language of "interpreted". It's run, line-by-line through an interpreter, and turned into byte-code, which is executed by the VM. There's no compilation, and in CPython, very little optimisation. PyPy is obviously different on that last point as it's a JIT, but the larger point still stands.
  - segfaultbuserr 4y ago
    > It's run, line-by-line through an interpreter, and turned into byte-code, which is executed by the VM. Just a small technical correction: you can pre-complie to .py source files to .pyc bytecode files without waiting for the interpreter to do it line by line, many distro package managers already perform this step automatically when a package is installed. Though you're right in the sense that it doesn't really improve performance, CPython itself is the slowest part, not bytecode generation. > There's no compilation, and in CPython, very little optimisation. +1. This was actually a deliberate design choice [0]. Guido van Rossum himself said, "Python is about having the simplest, dumbest compiler imaginable." CPython was designed for ease of learning and use, it was never designed to be a high-performance language. Pure Python code (without C extensions like NumPy) can never be good at number-crunching tasks. [0] https://nullprogram.com/blog/2019/02/24/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2019/02/24/
    - falcolas 4y ago
      There are still some basic optimizations the Python compiler makes. It has, for example, a keyhole optimizer, and some built in optimizations around integer objects to name two. It’s nothing too fancy, but it still does the basics.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    GraalVM?