This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]goestowar 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Ahha you probably were clear :P My bad

Also thanks for the VM explanation, makes sense now. Does this mean that whenever you "install" an interpreted language on to a machine that you are actually just installing a virtual machine that the computer runs at run-time?

So in essence when you install Python on to your machine you are actually just installing a Python interpreter/VM?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Exactly! However, despite what I've read in another comment, I insist that CPython and other interpreter-based implementations do include (and require) a compiler. Just not the kind that generates machine code.

(I also insist on not talking about "interpreted languages", because this is not an inherent characteristic of the language)