Or indeed any time complexity need to be layered. A VM design doesn't even have to have an explicit bytecode compilation stage -- you can write an interpreter t

Or indeed any time complexity need to be layered. A VM design doesn't even have to have an explicit bytecode compilation stage -- you can write an interpreter that runs as the instructions are issued. David Parnas talks a lot about this as a way to reliable modularisation: https://two-wrongs.com/deliberate-abstraction.html https://two-wrongs.com/deliberate-abstraction.html