<architecture> A virtual machine implementation approach,
used to speed up execution of byte-code programs. To
execute a program unit such as a method or a function, the
virtual machine compiles its bytecodes into (hardware) machine
code. The translated code is also placed in a cache, so that
next time that unit's machine code can be executed
immediately, without repeating the translation.
This technique was pioneered by the commercial Smalltalk
implementation currently known as VisualWorks, in the early
1980s. Currently it is also used by some implementations of
the Java Virtual Machine under the name JIT (Just In Time
compilation).
[Peter L. Deutsch and Alan Schiffman. "Efficient
Implementation of the Smalltalk-80 System", 11th Annual
Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Jan 1984,
pp. 297-302].
(2002-04-15)
Nearby terms:
dynamic scope « dynamic scoping « Dynamic Systems Development Method « dynamic translation » dynamic typing » DYNAMO » Dynix
