SMRTR ProgrammingApr 20, 2026Hacker News

How to Make a Fast Dynamic Language Interpreter

SMRTR summary

A detailed walkthrough of optimizing an AST-walking interpreter for the Zef programming language from scratch, achieving a 16x speedup through techniques like value representation, inline caching, object model redesign, and watchpoints. The optimizations bring the simple interpreter within competitive range of CPython, Lua, and QuickJS without requiring JIT compilation or complex garbage collection.

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