I've noted on the computer language shootout that ocaml bytecode is
slow compared to Java. I'm curious, are there any plans to optimise
the shit out of the bytecode interpreter? I know it has been a goal to
not be much more than 1.3x slower than C -- but this only covers
ocamlopt/native code. Don't you think bytecode should have some
endeavour to match or better some other language too (Java seems best
case to me in this scenario).

About the only thing the shootout proves is that ocaml bytecode has
very good memory use compared to Java.

On 10/22/05, David MENTRE <david.mentre@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> 2005/10/21, Jonathan Roewen <jonathan.roewen@gmail.com>:
> > How does the toplevel differ from the bytecode interpreter?
>
> No difference. Toplevel expression are compiled as bytecode and then
> executed by bytecode interpreter.
>
> > Am I right that bytecode just runs in a VM?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Also, is the VM written in OCaml itself?
>
> No, in C (see directory byterun/ in ocaml source code).
>
> Yours,
> d.
>