Re: alternatives to java byte-codes

Niall Dalton <niall@cuc.ucc.ie> quotes a description of "Juice":
> Juice's distribution format, on the other hand, is far more complex. It
> is based on a tree-shaped program representation as is typically used
> transiently within optimizing compilers. Rather than containing a linear
> code-sequence that can be interpreted byte-by-byte, a Juice-encoded
> applet contains a compressed tree that describes the actions of the
> original program. The tree preserves the control-flow structure of the
> original
> program, which makes it much easier to perform code optimization while
> the tree is translated into the native instruction set of the target
> machine.


Hmm, I thought most optimising compilers went for variations on
3-address code and a control-flow graph. How many compilers use an
abstract syntax tree for optimisation ? My gut feeling is that trees
make some transfor- mations harder, especially if the tree is close to
the language's source code. I would argue that java bytecodes are
closer to what optimising compilers use ;-)


Compiling from Java bytecodes has its problems (e.g. the jsrs), but
these aren't really related to the basic decision to use bytecodes.
--
David Gay - Yet Another Starving Grad Student
dgay@cs.berkeley.edu

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