Resending this as realised accidentally replied off list Silas On 30 Jan 2022, at 18:39, silas poulson > wrote: On 30 Jan 2022, at 18:07, Dan Stromberg > wrote: And is Java? They both have a byte code interpreter. My understanding is Java is both a compiled and interpreted language - with javac compiling java code to byte code and then JVM interpreting and executing the byte code. And then there's the CPython implementation of Python. Granted, it has an implicit, cached compilation step, but is it less compiled for that? I would so no - in my mind compiling analyses the entire source and then translates it whilst interpreters only explore a single line or expression. Simply because the compilation happens only Just In Time, doesn’t make it any less of a compilation step. Hope that helps, Silas