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How we built an interpreter for Swift

(www.bitrig.app)
82 points jacobx | 1 comments | 04 Sep 25 16:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
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jgbuddy ◴[04 Sep 25 18:29 UTC] No.45130570[source]▶
Swift can already be used in REPL mode, not sure if it's accurate to say Swift is a strictly compiled language that a interpreter was developed for (see 'swift' command line executable). Seems misleading that this is not mentioned anywhere in the article.
replies(3): >>45130633 #>>45130663 #>>45130724 #
1. lanza ◴[04 Sep 25 18:40 UTC] No.45130724[source]▶
That's a JIT. It uses the same compiler infrastructure but swaps out the AoT backend and replaces it with the JIT backend in LLVM. Notably, this blog post is targeting on-device usage which a custom JIT is not allowed. You can only interpret.