I'm trying to get a better understanding of the difference. I've found a lot of explanations online, but they tend towards the abstract differences rather than the practical implications.
Most of my programming experiences has been with CPython (dynamic, interpreted), and Java (static, compiled). However, I understand that there are other kinds of interpreted and compiled languages. Aside from the fact that executable files can be distributed from programs written in compiled languages, are there any advantages/disadvantages to each type? Oftentimes, I hear people arguing that interpreted languages can be used interactively, but I believe that compiled languages can have interactive implementations as well, correct?
The difference between an interpreted and a compiled language lies in the result of the process of interpreting or compiling. An interpreter produces a result from a program, while a compiler produces a program written in assembly language.
Python is an interpreted language, which means the source code of a Python program is converted into bytecode that is then executed by the Python virtual machine. Python is different from major compiled languages, such as C and C + +, as Python code is not required to be built and linked like code for these languages.
Types of compiled language – C, C++, C#, CLEO, COBOL, etc. Interpreted Language: An interpreted language is a programming language which are generally interpreted, without compiling a program into machine instructions.
Interpreter Vs Compiler Scans the entire program and translates it as a whole into machine code. Interpreters usually take less amount of time to analyze the source code. However, the overall execution time is comparatively slower than compilers. Compilers usually take a large amount of time to analyze the source code.
A compiled language is one where the program, once compiled, is expressed in the instructions of the target machine. For example, an addition "+" operation in your source code could be translated directly to the "ADD" instruction in machine code.
An interpreted language is one where the instructions are not directly executed by the target machine, but instead read and executed by some other program (which normally is written in the language of the native machine). For example, the same "+" operation would be recognised by the interpreter at run time, which would then call its own "add(a,b)" function with the appropriate arguments, which would then execute the machine code "ADD" instruction.
You can do anything that you can do in an interpreted language in a compiled language and vice-versa - they are both Turing complete. Both however have advantages and disadvantages for implementation and use.
I'm going to completely generalise (purists forgive me!) but, roughly, here are the advantages of compiled languages:
And here are the advantages of interpreted languages:
Note that modern techniques such as bytecode compilation add some extra complexity - what happens here is that the compiler targets a "virtual machine" which is not the same as the underlying hardware. These virtual machine instructions can then be compiled again at a later stage to get native code (e.g. as done by the Java JVM JIT compiler).
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