4 ms·

This is specifically refuted in the article: > ‘interpreted’ and ‘compiled’ are properties of an implementation

• stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  I disagree. It's still the language that is interpreted or compiled in that specific implementation. The author is also somewhat confused by the word "compilation". Most programmers use it exclusively to talk about generation of native code ahead of time.
  • mattfenwick 13y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the first 2 sentences of your response. They seem to say that a language and an implementation of that language are the same thing. Am I correct that this is what they mean? (Apologies if something else was meant) Say we have a language X whose definition says nothing about interpretation or compilation. We also have two implementations of language X, one which is an interpreter, and one which is a compiler. Is X an interpreted language, a compiled language, or something else? Sorry for the misunderstanding, and thanks for the clarification.
    • stefantalpalaru 13y ago
      > Is X an interpreted language, a compiled language, or something else? Both. You can take in consideration a real example: Scheme is interpreted in all its implementations and compiled in a relevant number of them. Languages and implementations are different things, but being interpreted, compiled, JIT-ed, translated, etc. is a property of the language implemented in the... implementation.