Well you did say: “ NodeJS relies on V8, which is perhaps the world's most highly optimised interpreter (/JIT compiler/runner)”
But even in manpower this is pretty hyperbolic compared to Java and .NET. There was probably more manpower in even some of the third party Java runtimes like Azul.
> Well you did say: "NodeJS relies on V8, which is perhaps the world's most highly optimised interpreter (/JIT compiler/runner)"
Yes, and that's exactly what I meant. It's undergone the most optimisation. That doesn't mean the result will necessarily be more performant than some other interpreter for a different language which is simpler to interpret. By that logic, I could write an 'x86 interpreter' which would blow LuaJIT out of the water...
> But even in manpower this is pretty hyperbolic compared to Java and .NET.
I wasn't including Java because it's not strictly an interpreted language, though I admit you could write a whole book about the philosophical differences between V8's abstract machine vs Java's bytecode VM. .NET I don't know so much about. As far as I'm aware, .NET hasn't had as much manpower invested, though Java has & would certainly beat V8 if you included it.
But even in manpower this is pretty hyperbolic compared to Java and .NET. There was probably more manpower in even some of the third party Java runtimes like Azul.