He's talking about intermediate representation and how some optimizations, such as SSA [1], are closer to functional style. In the end it's all imperative assem

He's talking about intermediate representation and how some optimizations, such as SSA [1], are closer to functional style. In the end it's all imperative assembly, but during the optimization phase it can be something else. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single_assignment_form