dynamic translation

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)