Programming Languages: Concepts and Implementation

4.6 Thematic Takeaways

• Languages lend themselves to implementation through either interpretation or compilation, but usually not through both.

• An interpreter or compiler for a computer language creates a virtual machine for the language of the source program (i.e., a computer that virtually understands the language).

• Compilers and interpreters are often complementary in terms of their advantages and disadvantages. This leads to the conception of hybrid implementation systems.

• Compilation results in a fast executable; interpretation results in slow execution because it takes longer to decode high-level program statements than machine instructions.

• Interpreters support run-time flexibility in the source language, which is often less practical ...