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Developer Creates An Experimental Perl 5 To Java Compiler (perl.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the more-than-one-way-to-do-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Saturday night saw the announcement of an experimental Perl 5 to Java compiler. "This is the first release," posted developer FlÃvio S. Glock -- after 100 weeks of development. "Note that you don't need to compile a Java file. Perlito5 now compiles the Perl code to JVM bytecode in memory and executes it." He describes the compiler as "a work-in-progress" that "provides an impressive coverage of Perl features, but it will not run most existing Perl programs due to platform differences."

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Perl to Java Bytecode? by KermodeBear · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, that's one way to make Perl even more unreadable. :P

    --
    Love sees no species.
  2. Re:Haven't they buried this yet? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perl 5 must be godawful if you need to compile it to Java.

    It isn't compiled to Java. It is compiled to JVM bytecode. Perl compilers have been done before, so the only new thing here is the backend target ... and that he claims to support "eval" without an embedded interpreter. I don't see how that is possible, and he should get a Turing award if he actually accomplished that.

  3. Dev deserves nerdly kudos - however by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not sure if there's a practical point to this. Perl is going to be at least as widely supported as Java, so it's not a question of availability. And the dev makes no claims regarding speed... actually the dev makes no claims whatsoever, other than "here it is" and "most perl scripts won't work". If speed were actually the goal, I don't think Java byte code would be the target.

    From the standpoint of being a cool nerd project, though - most definitely. This does seem like a throwback to the "news for nerds" catch phrase.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  4. oh goodie by ooloorie · · Score: 5, Funny

    The unpalatable compiling to the unspeakable.

    1. Re:oh goodie by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

      And in most cases resulting in the unworkable.

  5. It's been done before by alangmead · · Score: 4, Informative

    Larry Wall made Java Perl Lingo (JPL, named after Larry's previous employer) around the release of Perl 5. O'Reilly first tried to sell it as a commercial software in the Perl Resource Kit, but eventually made it open source http://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/... in a "dumpware" sort of mode. It eventually became incompatible with newer Perl and Java releases and I want to say it was abandoned, but that is pretending people used it.