Support For Dynamic Languages
The Java Virtual Machine provides some support for dynamically typed languages. Most of the existing JVM instruction set is statically typed - in the sense that method calls have their signatures type-checked at compile time, without a mechanism to defer this decision to run time, or to choose the method dispatch by an alternative approach.
JSR 292 (Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java™ Platform) added a new invokedynamic instruction at the JVM level, to allow method invocation relying on dynamic type checking (instead of the existing statically type-checked invokevirtual instruction). The Da Vinci Machine is a prototype virtual machine implementation that hosts JVM extensions aimed at supporting dynamic languages. All JVMs supporting J2SE 7 also include the invokedynamic opcode.
Read more about this topic: Java Bytecode
Famous quotes containing the words support, dynamic and/or languages:
“An ordinary man will work every day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, men of God, so called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of the body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)