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Questions tagged [interpreted-language]

Questions about interpreted languages and program interpretation in general. A language implementation is interpreted if programs are executed by another program (the interpreter) as opposed to being transformed (compiled) into code that is directly executed by the machine.

An interpreted language is a programming language in which programs are "indirectly" executed (interpreted) by an interpreter program. This can be contrasted with a compiled language which is converted into machine code and then "directly" executed by the host CPU.

Theoretically, any language may be compiled or interpreted; this designation is applied purely because of common implementation practice and not some essential property of a language. Indeed, for some programming languages, there is little performance difference between an interpretive, or compiled-based approach to their implementation.

For more information, see the Wikipedia entry about interpreted languages.
See also .

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Where is the Ruby interpreter located?

I'm using Ruby 1.8.7 on OS X. Where is the Ruby interpreter located? My goal is to learn more about Ruby, interpreted languages and interpreting/parsing.
SundayMonday
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How does Branch Prediction affect performance in R?

Some references: This is a follow-up on this Why is processing a sorted array faster than processing an unsorted array? The only post in r tag that I found somewhat related to branch prediction was this Why sampling matrix row is very…
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How does python implement lookups for mutually recursive function calls?

Suppose I have two functions one after another in the same python file: def A(n): B(n-1) # if I add A(1) here, it gives me an error def B(n): if n <= 0: return else: A(n-1) When the interpreter is reading A, B is not yet…
watashiSHUN
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Proprietary plug-ins for GPL programs: what about interpreted languages?

I am developing a GPL-licensed application in Python and need to know if the GPL allows my program to use proprietary plug-ins. This is what the FSF has to say on the issue: If a program released under the GPL uses plug-ins, what are the…
dF.
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Ruby variable definition

I stumbled upon a strange behavior in ruby regarding variable definition (and lost a box of donuts on the way): irb(main):001:0> if false irb(main):002:1> a = 1 irb(main):003:1> end => nil irb(main):005:0> a.nil? => true irb(main):006:0>…
jlhonora
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How is APL optimized to have great performance at array processing? What are some example tricks and optimizations it performs?

I am interested in how APL is so efficient at what it does, to the point of sometimes being benchmarked as outperforming C. So I'm curious, what are some of the optimizations done by the APL compiler to make the language so efficient?
Dan Harmon
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Prolog: a compiled or interpreted language or both?

There are compilers for prolog but other websites say that the language itself is an interpreted language. I'm confused if prolog is really an interpreted language. Can someone please clarify if what the language really is? Compiled language or…
Charles.Aposaga
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PHP throws error inside function even though the function is not executed on the page

If PHP is interpreted language(every line is executed as it is reached), how come it throws errors if the error occurs inside a function which is never executed? Or may be I don't get what interpreted means? For e.g
user441407
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How hard is it to write an interpreted language assuming you have an AST?

I already have a parser for a language I've been working on. Is making it interpreted difficult? I was thinking its simple. The parsing and syntax check is done. I just have a tree of objects. Everytime an object is created I create a branch and…
user34537
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Do compiled PHP scripts exist?

I am wondering if anyone has used or read about PHP scripts compiled as a .so extension for Apache... Thing is I think I remember reading about it somewhere but dont know if such a thing exists. This looks promising, but incomplete and abandoned:…
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What are the pros and cons of interpreted languages?

I'm now learning Perl. What are the pros and cons of the interpreted languages?
Nathan Campos
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Interpreted vs. Compiled Languages for Web Sites (PHP, ASP, Perl, Python, etc.)

I build database-driven web sites. Previously I have used Perl or PHP with MySQL. Now I am starting a big new project, and I want to do it in the way that will result in the most responsive possible site. I have seen several pages here where…
Andy Swift
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Is Object-Oriented Programming in Interpreted languages (i.e, PHP) efficient?

I was just wondering whether it would be worth sticking to non-OOP code for the sake of speed. Also, In commercial web-applications, is OOP generally used or avoided? Which is the standard? Many Thanks, Ed
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Why is client-side web still using an interpreted language?

To my knowledge JavaScript is the only language that will execute on the client side after the HTML file has been retrieved from the server. As far as I know JavaScript is by no means compiled in anyway and thus it is an interpreted language. With…
Storm Muller
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How is it possible to sell code written in an interpreted language?

It seems to me that if you are writing in an interpreted language that it must be difficult to sell software, because anyone who buys it can edit it/change it/resell it without much difficulty. How do you get around this? I have a couple of PHP apps…
Rich Bradshaw
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