21 Oct
2006
21 Oct
'06
11:35 a.m.
Jay West wrote:
In theory, you are right. In practice I believe
you're making too much
of a generalization. In school they typically teach that interpreters
are always slower in order to explain and drive home the differences. In
the real world however, that's quite simply not always the case. I've
written both professionally, and I've seen instances that would
obviously suprise you. Now if you're comparing interpreted languages vs.
written by hand assembler, I could agree with you. But when a compiler
is the one generating the object, well, you may be suprised at how
closely a interpreted stack machine can get to the ratio of required
hardware instructions given the platform.
Jay
I know of stack machines in theory only, so I'll take your word on it.
None of the hardware I've used in the last 20 years (Z80, 6502, 6800,
x86, PPC, etc.) would qualify as stack machines, and hence my lack of
faith. :-)
Mike