Hi, Peter.
>Yeah well, I guess we now might start a discussion on what 'to compile' means. One definition is 'to translate a program into machine language'. However, in VFP we have the command COMPILE and it will certainly not compile into machine language. Instead, it will generate 'object files', whatever these may be.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm referring as a "real" compilation.

>Perhaps object files are like highly efficient pieces of food (tokens) for the interpreter. The interpreter gets a piece of food and knows immediately what to do with it. There's no longer the need to first analyze the words of a string. What comes to my mind is a 'data driven' aplication written in C++/assembler. And the p-code is the data. If programmed well, then a 'data driven' or p-code driven application can be almost as fast as a real compiled app, don't you think?

It can be quite efficient, but it will never be the same as a real compiler. In the VFP case, for example, as it is not strongly typed, just doing all the needed transformations and type casts takes a lot of processing. In C++ you use the most basic data-types, and in .NET a lot of clever mechanisms are in place to make all the types behave like objects, but keep them performing like native data types at low level.

See you,