Node:Why interpreters?, Next:Concepts, Previous:Introduction, Up:Top
Interpreters are a popular language implementation technique because they combine all three of the following advantages:
Vmgen makes it even easier to implement interpreters.
The main disadvantage of interpreters is their run-time speed. However, there are huge differences between different interpreters in this area: the slowdown over optimized C code on programs consisting of simple operations is typically a factor of 10 for the more efficient interpreters, and a factor of 1000 for the less efficient ones (the slowdown for programs executing complex operations is less, because the time spent in libraries for executing complex operations is the same in all implementation strategies).
Vmgen supports techniques for building efficient interpreters.