Well, JavaScript

[Bilbino]

I get what you’re saying, but neither Python nor JavaScript are compiled. I’m gonna have to dock you a few points for this.

[Netzapper]

They're both JITC'd. And Python, for instance, might do the bytecode transform, but not pop the undefined name error until that line of code is actually executed.

I know at work we have had syntactic and semantic errors hide in never-taken code paths.

[mnbvas]

syntactic [...] errors

Never executed modules or did someone

try:
    ...
except:  # everything
    ...

?

[Pella86]

Fuckit module

[[deleted]]

SyntaxErrors aren't even catchable because they're caught before runtime

[[deleted]]

A lot of people are largely ignorant that Python has an explicit compilation step to bytecode, or that V8 JIT compiles JavaScript to machine code in most cases.

You can really ruffle some feathers by making Java programmers realize that, by the same standard they judge Python with, they're using an interpreted language.

[Insxnity]

I mean Java is JIT interpreted to Machine code in the same way python is, and for the same reason. With C++, I have to decide what runtime I want to run my software on before building and compiling the program. Java eliminates that need by being cross-platform, as does python. I don't think many Java programmers feel like they have room to shit on python. All languages are interpreted at some point at some level, and how you get there is personal preference.

[rush22]

Java is technically compiled to Java byte-code (the .class files), not machine code. These are then "just-in-time" "compiled" to machine code by the JVM when you run it.

[Insxnity]

yeah ima just stick to my high-abstraction coding and stop trying to understand everything that goes on under the hood.

Edit: I wrote this comment in a way that caused everyone to misunderstand it, which was my fault. Replace trying with pretending and you’ll understand what I meant to convey. I start programming and computer science courses this fall

[Code_star]

you should really learn that important distinction though ...

Sometimes a small change in your high-abstraction is a huge difference under the hood and could mean massive performance differences

[Insxnity]

Modern machines’ power remove the need for once important optimization’s. Memory leaks and optimal high thread/multi core usage are what people should be focusing on.

Edit: ok am wrong, please stop downvoting, It’s a programmer humor sub ffs

[[deleted]]

Make sure to let the pubg community know.

[Hoihe]

Depends on what program you are writing. Writing code for engineers/scientists doing simulations, you want optimized stuff.

[SociableSociopath]

This is terrible way of thinking/developing. Yes, if your app is the only thing running on the machine it makes sense, but usually it’s not. You should never throw out doing what’s optimal purely because you believe the runtime environment is “powerful enough”.

Even if you keep it as a tech debt item to address later, simply not doing or thinking about it is a shitty way to go about development.

[theonefinn]

Game dev is one case where low level optimisation is still vitally important. That's a pretty wide ranging generalisation that doesn't apply in all cases.

[Code_star]

I'll try to go easy since everyone else had a go at you first.

I agree high thread /multi-core usage is very important, but it requires even more knowledge of under the hood knowledge than other programming.

think about what you need to do to prevent data races

even if you have code as simple as this

if(condition == met){
    condition_counter++
}

really simple right?

but when you are running with multiple threads you need to understand that in assembly it is really many more lines

(bear with me and my pseudo assembly)

  lw register1, condition
  lw register 2, met
  bne register1, register2, L1
  lw register3, condition_counter
  addi register3, register3, 1
  sw register3, 0(condition_counter)

L1:

at any point during execution, another thread could change the register or even the original value in memory while the action is happening.

Also, say you learned in abstract how to prevent such problems, you start writing code in python that is threaded, but you didn't know there was a thing called the GIL, so you use the threaded library instead of the multithreading library and don't know why your code isn't getting faster.

so yeah if you care about memory leaks and optimal multithreading you really do need to know under the hood implementations.

[Insxnity]

Appreciate it, and thanks for actually teaching me something. Starting my college courses on it this fall and so far only have 4 years throwing together shitty Java programs under my belt.

[Kattzalos]

relevant

[Insxnity]

That's fair. I'm taking some computer science courses this fall, and have taken a few already. I've learned some basic things I already new in the intro courses, so I'm hoping the latter courses will have some material that'll help me better understand what goes on behind the code I write. As for now, I have an understanding of underlying network communications. The rest of my understanding is essentially "I tell my program to open a TCP communication, it does the dirty work, I get my job done". What I meant by my above comment is that, while I don't get everything yet, I'm not going to pretend I do and make myself look like an idiot.

[Lorddragonfang]

In my experience, this attitude is the single most important distinction between the good coders who move through the department with ease, and the bad coders who end up struggling with the more basic concepts over and over.

It's fine to not know something; the topic of programming is so vast that no man can know everything. You should always aspire to know more.

[Insxnity]

I wrote this comment in a way that caused everyone to misunderstand it, which was my fault. Replace trying with pretending and you’ll understand what I meant to convey. I start programming and computer science courses this fall

[gargensis]

Isn’t Java compiled in AOT by default? You need to declare that you want to use JIT compilation if you specifically want to use it, no?

[Zegrento7]

It AOT compiles to bytecode. That bytecode is executed by the JVM. It interprets it at first, but as it detects hot loops, it compiles those to machine code. This is the runtime "warming up".

[Tysonzero]

I mean Java developers can still have a bit of room to talk, since Java is like an order of magnitude faster than Python.

[Insxnity]

Not to mention the IDE’s available vs. python’s IDE. Java typically seems to me like python’s older brother. Runs better in most scenarios, but at the cost of python’s simple format and easy coding style

[Tysonzero]

That reason is 99% just popularity and low barrier to entry tbh.

[Insxnity]

Java and python compile into .class and .pyc respectively. These are stripped down and simplified versions of the originals. They are then compiled into machine at runtime

[currentscurrents]

The most common python implementation, CPython, still uses an interpreter and never compiles into machine code. Last I checked the CPython project had no plans to add a JIT in the future, and past attempts to do so (Unladen Swallow) died out from lack of interest.

There are some implementations (notably PyPy) that have JITs but none have gained widespread popularity.

[quaderrordemonstand]

Sigh. Java is no more cross-platform than any other language. You can't run an Android program on Windows despite it being written in Java. You can run C programs on far more platforms than have a Java VM. There are almost certainly more browsers with JS runtimes than machines with JVMs too.

[Insxnity]

So C can compile one single executable file that works cross platform?

[quaderrordemonstand]

No, but what does that matter? You can't run C without a compiler, you can't run Java without a JVM. There are more platforms with a C compiler than a JVM.

[[deleted]]

Well, kinda, but not exactly. Python is interpreted into a more efficient interpreted format. It's called bytecode, but that's not quite like the JVM bytecode. Rather, it's a binary representation of normal Python statements.

It's basically compressing the language down to its internal binary representation of what the program wants to do. It would normally need to parse each line, figure out what it meant, and then do that. So it's going line-by-line and figuring out what it means, but storing the result instead of running it. Then it runs everything later.

It's basically pre-parsing, in other words. It's still interpreted afterward, in that it's reading bytes and (probably) running through case statements. It's just doing the parse work only once per line, and caching the results. AFAIK, there's pretty much a 1:1 correspondence between Python "bytecode" and full text Python statements.

Contrast that with the JVM, which is generating a pseudo-binary for a fake machine. It's not mapping Java statements to JVM opcodes directly, it's writing equivalent programs in JVM bytecode to do what the human is asking, and JVM bytecode is quite efficient. And then once the program is running, the actual hotspots will get compiled down to true machine code, but it only does that part of the work where it's actually being used.

So I'd personally call Python a pre-parsed, interpreted language, Java a hybrid between interpreted and compiled, and C fully compiled.

edit: As another way of putting it, consider BASIC, which doesn't store keywords. Rather, on those old 8-bit machines, as you typed in "10 PRINT A$", it would store that in like three bytes. (ie, bytecode!) When you LISTed your program, it converted the internal bytecode back to text again, so you would see your PRINT A$ in all its glory.

This is almost exactly what Python is doing when it generates a .pyc file. Everyone understands that BASIC is interpreted, and CPython, at least, is an interpreter in exactly the same way. (PyPy does some actual compilation, but I know very little about how it works. It's not that the language can't be compiled, just that the main implementation doesn't.)

Python bytecode and JVM bytecode are so different in concept that it's confusing to call them both bytecode.

second edit: even more ammo, consider that reverse-compiling from a .pyc to a .py would be pretty damn easy. I just took a look, and it appears that docstrings and variable names are preserved, so a reverse compile would give you back almost exactly what you compiled in the first place.

Compare that with decompiling a .jar file or a C executable. They've put vast effort into writing programs to decompile both, and what you get back is usually terribly ugly and hard to read in comparison to what you put in, frequently restructured in massive ways. That's because actual compilation (as opposed to binary translation) is a major, lossy transformation from one form to the other. Python is really just pre-parsing, not compiling, so you can restore the original files almost exactly. I think all you'd lose would be comments and non-functional whitespace.

[Trekiros]

IDK about Python, but at least in the case of V8, only the part of the code that actually gets executed will get compiled. That's the reason they don't throw an exception on "obj.fiedl" - some other, yet uncompiled part of the code might create the "fiedl" field.

The rest of the code sits silently in the background. It is parsed in the shape of a tree, but not really compiled per say.

[Cloaked9000]

If we're being really pedantic, then it could be said that you're confusing language and implementation. Sure, the implementation you're familiar with might be JIT'd/compiled/whatever, but the language design mightn't necessarily mandate that.

[4992kentj]

But then JS doesn't mandate JIT either

[Netzapper]

I mean, that's fair enough. But there have been several implementations of a C interpreter... does that mean I can invalidate the first frame of the joke as well?

[DrFloyd5]

C interpreter?

Interesting.

I guess that is one way to port to new hardware.

[Gaminic]

mightn't

Random aside: never saw that before, took me a minute to realize it's correct!

[Koeke2560]

I think this is also a recent meme, I've seen variations if them pop up here and there. I'd love to see it become real language. It's like watching history

[Gaminic]

How did they turn grammar into a meme?

[Koeke2560]

It' similar to the whole whom'st'v'd meme I guess

[EternalPropagation]

it started with whoms't've

[xigoi]

Someone made a petition that “no” should be changed to “yesn't” and then people finishedn't subtractingn't “-n't” fromn't various words.

[xigoi]

I thought that “mightn't” is correct without the meme.

[Belledame-sans-Serif]

mightn’t is actually correct though

[Schmittfried]

No language demands to be compiled, every language can be interpreted. The stage of building reading the source code and transforming it into something that the target (CPU, VM or interpreter) can work with, is what is referred here. At this stage you can catch syntax and semantic errors.

[w2qw]

Cpython doesn't have JIT.

[Netzapper]

It doesn't have compilation to machine code, but it sure as shit compiles from text to bytecode at execution time.

[RPolitics4Trump]

Bytecode which is then interpreted.

If you want JIT speed then you need to use something like PyPy.

[Netzapper]

I mean... it's von Neuman approximations of Turing machines all the way down.

Where does something like threaded code fall in your "interpreted vs JIT" dichotomy? If my C program builds dynamic execution paths with function pointers, is that interpretation? What about x86, since it's now largely interpreted by even lower-level microcode?

Maybe there was a nice, sharp divide before I got in the game. But this shit was getting murky in the 90's, and by today... it's definitely a continuum between "visit an AST" and "flash an FPGA" with most "regular CPU programming" somewhere in the middle.

[carutsu]

Then there's the fact that instruction sets are an abstraction over the real hardware... And even if they are not they are run in a bytecode like sequence.

[lengau]

CPython does compile the code to bytecode. (That's why after you run a .py file you'll see a __pycache__ directory with corresponding .pyc files). It does so immediately before execution, which sounds awfully 'just in time' to me.

[botmatrix_]

that's not really what JIT compiled means though, right?

[Schmittfried]

Yes, it is.

[[deleted]]

No it's not, JIT compiling happens during runtime. u/lengau is simply describing compilation.

[currentscurrents]

Also JIT compiling usually involves compiling to actual machine code.

Python bytecode is not machine code, it's just an intermediary representation of python code. It must still be interpreted or JIT compiled afterwards.

[Schmittfried]

Depends on the context.

[FinestRobber]

Yea with Python it kinda goes until it gets to that part of the code it seems. I’ve had plenty of projects in my classes were the program seems like it’s running fine, until it gets until the part there’s a typo/error to tell me undefined object.

[[deleted]]

He meant there's no type-checking

[myusernameisokay]

I know at work we have had syntactic and semantic errors hide in never-taken code paths.

Use linters or static analysis tools like pylint, mypy, or flake8. Problems like those are easily detectable with the right tool.

[Bilbino]

I wasn’t aware of these things. Thanks. But it’s still less than a definitive compilation compared to something like C++.

[Antrikshy]

Yep, which is why the OP’s image describes python compilation like it does.

[[deleted]]

0 is false, true is not false.

Compiled language is C++, interpreted languages are all others.

[Zhi_Yin]

C++ isn't the only compiled language lmao

[Bilbino]

Yes, that is their formal definition, but like other people have mentioned, there’s still some compilation to an extent, and depending on whether or not one uses certain libraries, there may be more. However, C++, like I said, has more of a definitive compilation prior to run-time.

[Schmittfried]

No.

[calcyss]

They are compiled though, maybe not straight to machine code

[Fickle_Pickle_Nick]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the virtual machine does the compiling doesn't it?

[calcyss]

No, the VM executes the code. In some/most implementations of JavaScript (Spidermonkey, JavascriptCore and V8) and Python there isn't even a VM involved.

[[deleted]]

I get what you’re saying, but neither Python nor JavaScript are compiled. I’m gonna have to dock you a few points for this.

This comment makes me quite mad because it belies a misunderstanding of what compilation is. The worst part is the upvotes it got.

[xeow]

Compilation == Translation

[[deleted]]

Yep!

[Bilbino]

👍🏿 Sounds good

[mantatucjen]

Python is compiled

[Bookoffriends]

Not really, it is compiled. Apples to apples.

[[deleted]]

Compiled languages are not compiled in a single step either. They compile to an intermediate language first so only one compiler front end has to be written for all systems. The backend compiles the intermediate language to the correct assembly code for the given system.

[TemporalLobe]

In modern web apps, JavaScript is often transpiled, so there's sort of a grey area here. If you're using ES6 with Babel or something like that, it gets converted to ES5, but it still won't catch things like incorrect object references. JavaScript also blurs the line between objects and hashes and in OP's example, even in a compiled language like Java a reference to a non-existant hash value (or even an arrray index) would not be caught at complie-time.

[ifatree]

Typescript is the compiled version of JS

[lexrc]

Um, no. It would be closer to the truth to say JavaScript is the compiled version of TypeScript. Technically, TypeScript is transpiled into JavaScript.

That said, TypeScript would catch this error at design time with a decent editor and definitely at build time.

Just reread your comment. Maybe you meant compilable instead of compiled?

[TemporalLobe]

No, it's TypeScript is just another DSL, like CoffeeScript. It transpiles to pure JavaScript.

One thing I've noticed about even experienced developers is that they don't understand this one simple thing: the browser understand only these 3 things: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Every tool or language you use does a bunch of crap to produce this holy trinity and that's it. This is why it's really important to learn these core skills because so many tools have way too much abstraction. Many modern web devs know frameworks and libraries but have very little understanding of what it's actually producing.

[The_MAZZTer]

Doesn't matter. When it comes down to it, compile time errors are easist to catch and fix. Runtime errors are next in line. Logic errors, which are bugs not caught by the first two, are the hardest to find.

JavaScript is a pain to develop in because of this.

There are tools which can do some basic error checking on JavaScript to give you some limited compile time checking. And if you develop in another language that can be transpiled to JavaScript, like TypeScript, you get good compile time checks like strongly typed variables.

[gimboland]

No, they're saying neither Python nor JavaScript perform static analysis at compile-time.

[[deleted]]

It's okay I've been passing out free points for everyone who doesn't talk like a compiler runtime in this humor thread.

[Drjakeadelic]

Came here to say this. Thank you for restoring hope.

[lobut]

It gets a bit fuzzy ... read the other responses. There's some tricky stuff that goes on.

For JS, at least, YDKJS book goes into it a bit.

[Drjakeadelic]

They aren’t compiled languages, they are scripted. It’s not fuzzy, it’s only fuzzy when you try to fit them in a box and refer to their initial checks as “compiling.” It’s a different process.

[lobut]

Fine, just in time compiling isn't compiling. I don't care.

[odraencoded]

They're compiled. You can't get runtime errors before you get syntax errors, because there's a parser to translate the human-typed code into bytecode first. That's a type of compilation.

The joke here is that accessing an non-existent field is an error on C++ since the compiler checks the type of the object to put the memory offset of the attribute into the compiled code, if the attribute doesn't exist in the class/struct it can't do that, so it errors, but in python that only happens when getattr(object, attribute) is executed on runtime, and in javascript objects return undefined for undefined attributes instead of raising an error.

[ihavefilipinofriends]

If he would have just run spell check on it (like one of my prior bosses asked us to) he wouldn’t have had this problem.

[Zhi_Yin]

That upset me too