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Devoxx Greece 2024 - Busy Developer's Guide to Building a Bytecode Virtual Machine by Ted Neward
A guide to building a bytecode virtual machine, covering design patterns, bytecode instructions, and debugging techniques for developers.
- Virtual machines operate in similar ways, with a focus on fetching, decoding, and executing bytecode.
- The JVM and CLR are examples of stack-based virtual machines.
- Virtual machines can be built using native instructions, but this can be difficult to implement.
- The no op instruction is useful for placeholder purposes.
- The constant pool is important for storing constant values.
- Virtual machines can use native calls to load and execute native code.
- The JVM’s bytecode instructions include load, store, push, pop, and multiply.
- The debugger can be used to examine bytecode and potentially change it at runtime.
- Virtual machines can have their own internal representations of data and provide extensibility points.
- Call frames and execution stacks are important for evaluating the state of a virtual machine.
- Debugging tools can be used to examine the bytecode and internal state of a virtual machine.
- Building a virtual machine can be complex, but it is also a fun and educational experience.
- Virtual machines can be used to implement languages such as Java, Python, and JavaScript.
- The JVM’s bytecode is typically executed in a fetch decode execute cycle.
- Virtual machines can be deterministic or non-deterministic, depending on the implementation.
- The heap is used for dynamic allocation in virtual machines.
- Virtual machines can have implicit state, which can be accessed through the debugger.
- Game engines and other applications can be built on top of virtual machines.
- Virtual machines can be easy to implement for small languages, but more complex for larger languages.
- The JVM’s call stack is used for evaluating method calls and procedure calls.
- The JVM’s debugging tools allow for tracing and stepping through bytecode at runtime.
- Virtual machines can be built to be efficient and performant, but also require manual tuning.
- The JVM’s bytecode is designed to be platform-independent and can be executed on multiple platforms.
- Virtual machines can be used to implement languages such as C, C++, and Python.