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Compiling lazy functional programs to Java bytecode
Author(s) -
Meehan Gary,
Joy Mike
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-024x(199906)29:7<617::aid-spe250>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - java bytecode , computer science , programming language , bytecode , java , java applet , java annotation
The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) was designed as the target for Java compilers, but there is no reason why it cannot be used as the target for other languages. We describe the implementation of a compiler which translates a lazy, weakly‐typed functional program into Java class files. We compare the performance of our compiler to the only other known compiler from a lazy functional language to the JVM. The results are broadly similar, suggesting that to get a significant performance speed‐up using this compilation paradigm will come only from increasing the performance of the JVM, rather than enhancing the compiler itself. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.