Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Robert Klemme Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Translator, Compiler, Interpreter and Java Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:26:39 +0200 Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net 8BxZWgb4vZD9x/zvyu7ETgYW3PBLn4r2zorMR8nghpRCsUQDM= Cancel-Lock: sha1:x3mcrLJREqKkzedc+PIvaWbbH+Y= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.2.0 In-Reply-To: Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:32684 On 25.09.2015 06:37, Jeff Higgins wrote: > I'm so confused. > Will someone please clearly explain to me how the terms > translator, compiler, and interpreter relate to the Java language? Tha Java compiler translates Java source code into JVM bytecode (files with ".class" at the end of the name). This is a bit similar to machine code, just for a different processor. At runtime the JVM will interpret the bytecode. But: Interpretation is relatively slow so the JVM has a just in time compiler (JIT) that translates bytecode to machine code for the platform just before execution and then lets the CPU execute it. There are a lot more details especially about what the JVM does but if you are confused we should probably stick with the simple things and make sure you understood them before moving further. :-) Cheers robert -- remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/