Why not compile java into object code?

[Niklas Elmqvist]

On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:

[snip]

> >On a similar level, is this what JIT compilers do?  
> 
> Nope. JIT compilers take actual Java source and make it into bytecode. In
> other words, you don't have to compile your Java if you use a JIT compiler,
> because the JIT compiler does it for you. Excellent during development. Not
> so excellent in distribution.

Not quite true, Ben is on the right track. The JIT compiler is usually
part of the JVM, and thus not a separate compiler in its own right, and
yes, it translates Java bytecodes into native instructions for the
architecture it is running on. However, it tends to do this at on a
per-method basis (that is, at run-time), which may mean you will
experience a slow-down the first time you run a particular Java method.

I dug up a little URL to let you read for yourself 
<URL:http://www.sun.com/solaris/jit/>.

-- Niklas Elmqvist (d97elm at dtek.chalmers.se) ----------------------
"You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you 
 could do is give them a meaningful look."	 
	- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods