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by pcwalton 5003 days ago
I've never seen a bytecode that wasn't just a straightforward source-to-source translation of some language. JVM bytecode is pretty much just another way to encode Java (invokedynamic notwithstanding). .NET bytecode is pretty much just another way to write C#.

Bytecode really is nothing more than just a compressed source encoding of some language. It doesn't magically result in a VM that can efficiently encode all semantics of all programming languages, and I don't believe such a VM can exist anyway.
3 comments
btilly 5002 days ago
Bytecode really is nothing more than just a compressed source encoding of some language.

I was with you until you said "compressed".

There are plenty of examples where the bytecode representation is bigger than the original source files.

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MatthewPhillips 5003 days ago
Not sure about the JVM, but .NET compiles to an intermediate language called CIL before creating the bytecode. I agree with you, but to bytecode advocates, this is an emotional issue. They do not want JavaScript to be the first-class language and their pet language to be "held back" by it.
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mercurial 5002 days ago
What about LLVM? It seems able to deal with a fairly large number of languages with fairly different paradigms (including Rust :) )
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cygx 5002 days ago
That's similar to saying that x86 asm is able to deal with a large number of paradigms. LLVM IR might be a a viable target to avoid writing your own native code generators, but that does not a universal bytecode VM for dynamic languages make.

It sure would have been nice if Parrot had succeeded there...

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