Interpreted
 

• As explained earlier, Java is 'compiled' into machine-independent bytecodes, which are then interpreted by the JVM.
• The book points out that the JVM is slow.  Well, not necessarily...
• Just In Time (JIT) compilers are significantly faster.
• Native compilers make Java statistically equal to C++ in performance.
• Anyone can write a JVM.  Sun publishes a book to do just that.  So, you are not stuck with a vendor specific JVM, you can pick any JVM you wish.  You can even customize a JVM for your specific purposes.  This is simply not the case with many other programming langauges.  Hence, the beauty of open standards.

• As mentioned abovve, Just In Time compilers are much faster than the standard JVM.
• The first time they run, they compile the bytecode into native machine language.
• Then, they cache the results for future use.
• Further, they can optimize the code over time.

Created by:  Brandan Jones December 4, 2001