Chapter 10Building Bytecode Interpreters
In the previous chapter, we explored interpreters that operate on high-level programs with little to no preprocessing before execution. Those interpreters are great for implementing DSLs because they are the fastest path to getting a language up and running. Their only drawback is run-time efficiency. If we really care about efficiency for a particular DSL or need to implement a more general programming language, those interpreters aren’t appropriate.
In this chapter, we’ll explore another category of interpreters that is much more efficient. Unfortunately, the efficiency comes at the cost of a more complicated implementation. In essence, we need a tool that translates the high-level source code down ...
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