OK, bozo.
Define Interpreted, before you go ballistic.
You compile your Java into Bytecode then run it directly on a machine with no need to interpret it?
I heard that a Java VM was needed to interpret the Bytecode and convert it to machine language.
Logical step Sun made was to make the Bytecode interpreting VMs availiable for a variety of systems.
I'm not saying it's bad, just that it's not that far off than what others were doing late 70s, early 80s. UCSD P-System comes to mind.
Making the VM language agnostic seems like a good next step, don't you think? Let the developers program in thier language of choice, not be forced to learn a new language
Anyone who cares to learn more can search google for "Interpreted laungages and Java". Or if you prefer, search for Nolan S. Toone to read his writings on the subject, though that didn't turn anything up for me...
Here's a starter: threedee.com
Snipits:
Like today's Java, it was based on a "virtual machine" with a standard set of low-level, machine-language-like "p-code" instructions that were emulated on different hardware, including the 6502, the 8080, the Z-80, and the PDP-11. In this way, a Pascal compiler that emitted p-code executables could produce a program that could be run under the P-System on an Apple II, a Xerox 820, or a DEC PDP-11.
It's neat to see Java recycling all the old ideas (including one big one that never quite made it into the P-system: when Barry and Mark and I were at SofTech Microsystems, and the IBM PC had just come out with DOS as the defacto standard, we tried long and hard to convince the SofTech management that the right way to go was to make the P-system a portable programming environment that ran on the DOS operating system and directly accessed the DOS file system... or any other host op sys (such as UNIX). But they wouldn't buy it -- they thought there was more money in positioning the P-system as a competing operating system." |
