Compiling lazy functional programs to Java bytecode
Gary Meehan, Mike S. Joy · Software Practice and Experience · 1999
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.