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The difference between a virtual machine and an interpreter being?

• coldtea 11y ago
  Mostly orthogonal. You can have an interpreter without a virtual machine (Basic or Python doesn't have one, just a runtime), and similarly a virtual machine without an interpreter. An interpreter executes scripting instructions directly. A virtual machine implements a faux (virtualized) cpu, with its instruction set etc, and executes its "assembly code" (with or without JITing). (Things get complicated in that you can also have combinations of those concepts).
  • ihm 11y ago
    Python in CPython is executed after being compiled to the lower-level Python bytecode. Is this not sufficient to consider CPython to involve a virtual machine?
  • DasIch 11y ago
    Almost all interpreters compile an ast to an "assembly code" that gets executed. CPython even executes that assembly code without seeing the source at all just like Java.