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Q&A Interpreted language: What is its benefit for being written in that way ?

Interpreters are easier to write than compilers. For this reason esoteric and toy languages are often implemented by interpretation. But the dichotomy between interpreted and compiled languages is...

posted 4y ago by Peter Taylor‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Peter Taylor‭ · 2021-02-03T12:46:21Z (almost 4 years ago)
Interpreters are easier to write than compilers. For this reason esoteric and toy languages are often implemented by interpretation.

But the dichotomy between interpreted and compiled *languages* is a false one:

* a sufficiently popular language which initially has only an interpreter may well later gain a compiler for performance reasons (see: Python vs Cython, pypy, etc; PHP vs HHVM).
* other popular platforms use hybrid approaches whereby source code is compiled to a bytecode for a virtual machine, and then the bytecode is interpreted or part interpreted and part JIT-compiled (see: Java, .Net).