It occurs  to me that there's not a heck of a lot of difference between$>python module.pyAnd:$>javac module.java$>java module.classThe former compiles to an intermediate language (python bytecode) and executes the program. The latter breaks the steps up, first compiling to the intermediate language (jvm bytecode) and then executing on another line. In fact I can rewrite the python to break out the two steps, as in this SO question.It seems people make a big deal about the stark difference between compiled and interpreted languages. It seems the lines are entirely blured. Other popular interpreted languages havi similar features. Php compiles to its own opcodes which can be cached or stored for later use. Perl also is compiled to something.So... is there really any difference between these popular interpreted languages and popular compiled languages that compile to VMs? Perhaps in one case the VMs are typically more memory resident whereas with the interpreted languages they typically have their runtimes spun up? Yet this seems like it could be easily changed. Yet there still seems to be something of a difference. If they are more-or-less the same, then why is it that the performance of Java/C# seems to approach C++ while the interpreted languages are still an order of magnitude off? If its all truly bytecodes running in a VM, and all really the same, why the big difference in performance?
Whats the difference between an interpreted language and one compiled to a VM?
programming languages;language design;compiler;interpreters