A Java compiler converts the Java sourcecode that you write into a binary program consisting of byte codes. Byte codes are machine instructions for the Java virtual machine. When you execute a Java program, a program called the Java interpreter inspects and deciphers the byte codes for it, checks it out to ensure that it has not been tampered with and is safe to execute, and then executes the actions that the byte codes specify within the Java virtual machine. A Java interpreter can run standalone, or it can be part of a web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer where it can be invoked automatically to run applets in a web page.
Because your Java program consists of byte codes rather than native machine instructions, it is completely insulated from the particular hardware on which it is run. Any computer that has the Java environment implemented will handle your program as well as any other, and because the Java interpreter sits between your program and the physical machine, it can prevent unauthorized actions in the program from being executed.
In the past there has been a penalty for all this flexibility and protection in the speed of execution of your Java programs. An interpreted Java program would typically run at only one tenth of the speed of an equivalent program using native machine instructions. With present Java machine implementations, much of the performance penalty has been eliminated, and in programs that are not computation intensive – which is usually the case with the sort of program you would want to include in a web page, for example – you really wouldn't notice this anyway. With the JVM that is supplied with the current Java 2 System Development Kit (SDK) available from the Sun web site, there are very few circumstances where you will notice any appreciable degradation in performance compared to a program compiled to native machine code.
