Programming Languages: Concepts and Implementation

4.5 Influence of Language Goals on Implementation

The goals of a language (e.g., speed of execution, ease of development, safety) influence its design choices (e.g., static or dynamic bindings). Historically, both of these factors have had an influence on language implementation (e.g., interpretation or compilation). For instance, Fortran and C programs are intended to execute fast and, therefore, are compiled. The speed of the executable produced by a compiler is a direct result of the efficient decoding of machine instructions (vis-à-vis high-level statements) at run-time coupled with few semantic checks at run-time. Static bindings also support fast program execution. It is natural to implement a language designed to support static bindings ...