Achieving good performance in bytecoded language interpreters is difficult without sacrificing both simplicity and portability.This is due to the complexity of dynamic translation ("just-in-time compilation") of bytecodes into native code, which is the mechanism employed universally by highperformance interpreters.We demonstrate that a few simple techniques make it possible to create highly-portable dynamic translators that can attain as much as 70% the performance of optimized C for certain numerical computations.nanslators based on such techniques can offer respectable performance without sacrificing either the simplicity or portability of much slower "pure" bytecode interpreters.

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Programming languages often hide their implementation at a level of abstraction that is inaccessible to programmers. Decisions and tradeoffs made by the language designer at this level (single vs. multiple inheritance, mixins vs. Traits, dynamic dispatch vs. static case analysis, etc.) cannot be repaired easily by the programmer when they prove inconvenient or inadequate. The artificial distinction between implementation language and end-user language can be eliminated by implementing the language using only end-user objects and messages, making the implementation accessible for arbitrary modification by programmers. We show that three object types and five methods are sufficient to bootstrap an extensible object model and messaging semantics that are described entirely in terms of those same objects and messages. Raising the implementation to the programmers' level lets them design and control their own implementation mechanisms in which to express concise solutions and frees the original language designer from ever having to say "I'm sorry".

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