I just wanted to add some clarification regarding LLVM: it is not, at all, an interpreter. Rather, it is a compiler back-end in the sense that it translates f

I just wanted to add some clarification regarding LLVM: it is not, at all, an interpreter. Rather, it is a compiler back-end in the sense that it translates from an IR (intermediate representation) to machine code. The way that it's written makes it useful both in static compilation and JIT (just in time) compilation contexts. Also noteworthy: the IR has both a human-readable and compact binary persistent representations, so it's conceivable that one could use the latter (LLVM BC, as in "bitcode") to ship architecture-neutral binaries to end users that get compiled down to optimized machine code at installation time, or launch time, or just-in-time while the executable is running. LLVM is many things, but it is not an interpreter at any level.