@moshibar @Jes you can get a surprising amount of performance out of nothing more than a tracing JIT. :blobcatshrug2: those interpret code once to build up a tape of what actually happened to the machine, then the tape has a mini optimizer in it, and outputs machine code for the PC.

if there was a lot of checking code or small loops, often times the trace eliminates all of that. they have to insert guards to make sure the assumptions are still true, but it can work.

there are other techniques, i don't know them super well.