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Comment by M_Bakhtiari | Hacker News Reader

> Elixir is compiled, the other two are interpreted.

How can a language be intrinsically compiled or interpreted?

Sure, Befunge is one example of a language that's notoriously hard to build a compiler for but easy to build an interpreter for, but surely that can't be said for Ruby and JavaScript. V8 is a good counter-example to the claim that JavaScript has to be interpreted.

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>How can a language be intrinsically compiled or interpreted?

This is a great example of an academic nondistinction that is completely worthless in practical matters.

It is highly relevant because we in industry are the ones who actually have to work with and scale all these needlessly slow piece of shit language implementations. Implementations that get a pass because nobody can be bothered to have this conversation. Languages that are dynamic or good for scripting, rapid prototyping or whatever the hook is do not need to be implemented using slow and inefficient techniques and shouldn't get a pass for it. Similarly terrible languages shouldn't get a pass for being terrible just because they happen to have fast implementations.

It's precisely in academia where it is a worthless nondistinction, there a language doesn't even need to be implemented to be studied. For instance lambda calculus predates the programmable computer.

In context, it's entirely reasonable to assume an implicit "the only realistic implementation of X to choose for production work"

And V8 isn't a realistic implementation of JavaScript for production work?

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