It compiles C programs to perl or to Lua or to Java or to Lisp.
The author seems to hope that improvements in JIT technology will finally make the JIT-compiled translated programs faster than the original C program. That sounds optimistic to me, but I see two areas where this may be of use:
1. Portable execution of C code in a sand box on a web client -- just like Google Native Client, the provider of a program needs to change its build process, but the security of the VM is easier to check.
2. Checking that what you've written is ANSI/ISO C and not just, say, C for gcc on little-endian 32-bit x86 machines.
You are right on with most of what ou said. However, from the project description page, the author states the purpose as more of a "because we can! its a cool hack!" and talks about even wanting to target shell script eventually. It is just a fun hack!
The author seems to hope that improvements in JIT technology will finally make the JIT-compiled translated programs faster than the original C program. That sounds optimistic to me, but I see two areas where this may be of use:
1. Portable execution of C code in a sand box on a web client -- just like Google Native Client, the provider of a program needs to change its build process, but the security of the VM is easier to check.
2. Checking that what you've written is ANSI/ISO C and not just, say, C for gcc on little-endian 32-bit x86 machines.