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Old February 24th 14, 07:38 PM posted to comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,alt.windows7.general
Jason[_13_]
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Posts: 10
Default How many x86 instructions?

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:02:02 -0500 " wrote
in article

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 23:21:52 -0500, Jason
wrote:

On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 14:23:01 +0000 (UTC) "Robert Redelmeier"
wrote in article le7ng5$jfq$

Hate to break it to you, but you are behind the times. Compilers
are passe' -- "modern" systems use interpreters like JIT Java.

How else you you think Android gets Apps to run on the dogs-breakfast
of ARM processors out there? It is [nearly] all interpreted Java.
So much so that Dell can get 'roid Apps to run on its x86 tablet!
(AFAIK, iOS still runs compiled Apps prob'cuz Apple _hatez_ Oracle)


-- Robert


Compilers are NOT passe'

The performance penalty for interpreted languages is a large factor. It's
fine in many situations - scripting languages and the like - and the
modern processors are fast enough to make the performance hit tolerable.
Large-scale applications are still compiled and heavily optimized. Time
is money.


Time may be money but transistors are free. ;-)


Well, not exactly free. Visit a National Lab sometime to get an idea of
the magnitude of the expenditures for "free" transistors. I've been
there. Those people do everything to wring out every droplet of
performance that they can, even on petaflops machines.