A difference is that perl doesn't haven anything resembling a virtual machine or bytecode. Bytecode typically maps fairly easily to equivalent machine code instructions; in principle you could envisage building a CPU that directly executes Java bytecode, in exactly the same sense that we currently have CPUs which can directly execute X86_64 machine code. Perl just has heaps of complex data structures - OP trees, SV trees, regexes etc - none of which maps to a linear set of bytes representing an idealised CPU.

At one point there was perl "bytecode" - but all it was was a way of serialising the contents of all those data structures to a file and then reading them back. It was said to be slower than just compiling.

But this is all a bit nit-picky and toying with semantics. The main take-home point is that when people look for "a perl compiler", what they will find likely won't match their expectations in terms of what it does and what benefits it provides. Hence why I usually feel the urge to disabuse OPs of the notion in such threads.

Dave.

In reply to Re^5: Performance penalties of in-Perl docn vs compiled CGIs. (updated x 2) by dave_the_m
in thread Performance penalties of in-Perl docn vs compiled CGIs. by phirun

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.