Torsten Bronger wrote: > Well, I think that it's fair to say that there are by principle deep > run time differences between CPython and, say, a typical > C++-compiled program. Your definition would not reproduce that. I > think it's also fair to say that these differences should be known > if somebody tries to find the best tool for a job. After all, they > include advantages, too. > > My definiton would be that an interpreted language has in its > typical implementation an interpreting layer necessary for typical > hardware. Of couse, now we could discuss what is "typical", > however, in practice one would know it, I think. In case of Python: > CPython and all important modern processors.
Well, if we take any modern Intel/AMD chip (which could be described as "typical), a C++ program would fit the "interpreted" definition, since the processor does not execute the machine code directly but rather breaks it down into smaller microcode instruction -- a process that could be described as intepretation. Another problem with the definition: what would you call a C++ program that is running on top of an emulator? Does a language become interpreted just by running the program on top of an emulator? Why is the python interpreter different from an emulator in this respect? I think that the disctinction between "interpreted" and "compiled" (whatever both means) is really just not sensible at all. Cheers, Carl Friedrich -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
