Programming Ruby 3.3

Just-in-Time Compilers

Historically, computer languages are translated in one of two different ways. A language might use a compiler to convert the program code directly to machine language. This compilation happens in a separate step before the code is executed and produces machine-language artifacts. When it’s time to run the code, the machine-language version is run, and the original source code isn’t used.

Ruby typically uses a different tool called an interpreter. An interpreter converts the source code to machine language at runtime, generally without creating an intermediate machine-language artifact. In an interpreted language, you typically use the original source code at runtime.

That said, the line between compilers and interpreters ...