language interpreters/ interpreted languages weaknesses?

[Martijn Faassen]

William Tanksley <wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net> wrote:
> On 2 Sep 1999 10:21:31 GMT, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>>William Tanksley <wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net> wrote:

>>> Java's not interpreted, though -- I've never seen ANY Java interpreter.
>>> Java is always compiled, usually to bytecode, and then the bytecode
>>> machine is emulated.

>>Um, I was under the impression that this is what a modern interpreter
>>actually does? Parse the source to bytecode and execute the bytecode.
>>After all, Python does the same, right?

> If you assume Python is an interpreter, then yes, that's a counterexample.
> My point is that Python isn't an interpreter -- or rather, isn't one by
> any meaningful definition of the word.

But I thought a meaningful definition is:

an interpreter is something that executes a program without a compilation to
native machine code; instead some intermediate format is used (or even the
source is executed 'directly').

Of course emulated processors muddle the picture but it's not that useless
a definition either, as you seem to claim.

Regards,

Martijn