This is actually a quite complex question to answer, since neither "compiled" nor "interpreted" are all that well defined.

IIRC, "old school" interpreters interpret each source statement/line/whatever every time that statement is executed. Almost no serious "interpreted" language does that nowadays, with the possible exception of shells.

Most current "interpreted" languages like perl, are transformed into some kind of intermediate form that is then executed by/via the runtime environment. This form may or may not be anything like Java's bytecode programs - for one thing, IIRC a/the Java runtime doesn't necessarily run the bytecode directly, but (can) also transform the code to more efficient lower-level/machine instructions. I know perl's model is supposedly quite different, but I don't know the details.

If you bundle the runtime environment with the "intermediate form" you may end up with something quite a lot like the threaded code model that is/was used in Forth (which apparently also can mix "compiled" and "interpreted" code, but as far as I know is usually regarded as a compiled language - and it's still used for embedded software due to, at least, the small size of the generated executables).

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re: perl language by Joost
in thread perl language by hashin_p

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