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Re:Firefox’s new streaming and tiering compiler by chrisseaton on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @02:58PM (#16171216)
No these terms never have precise meanings, and trying to debate them too much doesn't achieve much. But if your definition doesn't actually work for any examples of the thing you're defining at all except one then it's probably wrong.
Re:Firefox’s new streaming and tiering compiler by rcthompson on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @03:06PM (#16171293)
Ok, fair enough. I was worried that there was some precise definition I had missed, but if that's not the case, I agree there's no point in debating it.
Re:Firefox’s new streaming and tiering compiler by emn13 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @04:42PM (#16172202)
Well, there's at least one definition that's pretty noncontroversial, if not terribly satisfying or precise: it's not a JIT if you compile well in advance of any indication the program needs to be run.

Whether that lazy-compilation strategy is fine-grained or not isn't clearcut, I believe. I think if you distribute a C program with a bash bootstrapper calling plain old gcc to compile and run the C code only when needed, even gcc might be considered a (coarse-grained, rather rudimentary) JIT in that context.

Re:Firefox’s new streaming and tiering compiler by kybernetikos on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @05:24PM (#16172605)