Source or Binary

[Kevin.Wall at qwest.com (Wall, Kevin)]

In a message dated July 30, 2009 10:09 AM EDT, Paco Hope wrote...

> The Java Virtual Machine is a theoretical machine, and Java
> code is compiled
> down to Java bytecode that runs on this theoretical machine.
> The Java VM is
> the actual Windows EXE that runs on the real hardware. It reads these
> bytecodes and executes them. There is a very significant level of
> abstraction between a Java program running in a Java virtual
> machine and
> native code that has been compiled to a native object format (e.g., an
> .exe).

There's theory, and then there's practice. This is almost 100% accurate
from a practical matter with the exception of HotSpot or other JIT compiler
technologies that compile certain byte code into machine code and then
execute that instead of the original byte code.

I'm sure that Paco is aware of that, but just not sure all the other
readers are.

-kevin
---
Kevin W. Wall           Qwest Information Technology, Inc.
Kevin.Wall at qwest.com    Phone: 614.215.4788
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students
 that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers
 they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration"
    - Edsger Dijkstra, How do we tell truths that matter?
      http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD498.html