extreme newbie

[Ed Jensen]

Grant Edwards <grante at visi.com> wrote:
>> I've guessed that python is purely an interpreted language unless its
>> compiled into another language (ie. it needs python installed in order
>> to run programs). Is this correct?
> 
> It's just like Java.  It's compiled into bytecode and then the
> bytecode is executed on a virtual machine.

Keep in mind that all modern JVMs "just-in-time" compile Java bytecode
to native code.  It looks something like this:

Java source -> Java bytecode -> Java virtual machine -> Native code

So, in the end, users are typically running natively compiled code.

(Warning: This is a simplification, but this description seems
adequate for the OP.)

Java typically outperforms Python by a very wide margin.