[OT] C++ and Smalltalk fun

Thomas A Petersen tpeterse at csc.com
Thu Dec 4 19:21:26 UTC 2003


Tim, et. al,

Tom Petersen said:
>> I looked upon Smalltalk with some skepticism because it is interpreted

Tim Rowledge said:
>No, it isn't. It's compiled. The compiled code may be executed by
>simulation, interpretation, custom hardware or translation to other
>formats but none of that makes the language 'interpreted'. Unless I
>suppose one chooses to be very nit-picky and claim that machine code is
>nterpreted by the instruction decoder section of a CPU.


Perhaps I should have used the word simulated or something.  After
observing Java and other efforts, it is clear that Smalltalk's refinement
of the byte code execution process is far more refined than anything else
out there.

By interpreted I meant that the byte codes are not one to one with the
underlying processor's instruction set.  As has been previously discussed
on this list and other places, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Good point Tim,
Tap






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