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by pjmlp 4352 days ago
> There's a renaissance in native-compiled languages now, mainly thanks to LLVM and the JVM

No, technology just goes in circles.

Like 30 years ago when people started to realize P-Code and other VM approaches were too slow and resource hungry to be useful targeting minicomputers.

Now mobiles and high electricity costs are making developers reach the same conclusions again.

1 comments

> Now mobiles and high electricity costs are making developers reach the same conclusions again.

But rather than fall back on existing compiled languages, they are now trying to build something that has it all.

That is also not new. While the minicomputers struggled with VMs and got back to AOT compilation, research labs workstations already had mixed mode.

The first JIT were targeted at Lisp and Smalltalk environments, and commercial Lisps always had JIT + AOT compilation support.

As for going for something new, it is hard to bring people back to technologies that are no longer mainstream, without adding something new to it.