Hank Shiffman from SGI said (a long time ago, but it’s till true):
There are three advantages of Java
using byte code instead of going to
the native code of the system:
Portability: Each kind of computer has its unique instruction
set. While some processors include the
instructions for their predecessors,
it’s generally true that a program
that runs on one kind of computer
won’t run on any other. Add in the
services provided by the operating
system, which each system describes in
its own unique way, and you have a
compatibility problem. In general, you
can’t write and compile a program for
one kind of system and run it on any
other without a lot of work. Java gets
around this limitation by inserting
its virtual machine between the
application and the real environment
(computer + operating system). If an
application is compiled to Java byte
code and that byte code is interpreted
the same way in every environment then
you can write a single program which
will work on all the different
platforms where Java is supported.
(That’s the theory, anyway. In
practice there are always small
incompatibilities lying in wait for
the programmer.)Security: One of Java’s virtues is its integration into the Web. Load
a web page that uses Java into your
browser and the Java code is
automatically downloaded and executed.
But what if the code destroys files,
whether through malice or sloppiness
on the programmer’s part? Java
prevents downloaded applets from doing
anything destructive by disallowing
potentially dangerous operations.
Before it allows the code to run it
examines it for attempts to bypass
security. It verifies that data is
used consistently: code that
manipulates a data item as an integer
at one stage and then tries to use it
as a pointer later will be caught and
prevented from executing. (The Java
language doesn’t allow pointer
arithmetic, so you can’t write Java
code to do what we just described.
However, there is nothing to prevent
someone from writing destructive byte
code themselves using a hexadecimal
editor or even building a Java byte
code assembler.) It generally isn’t
possible to analyze a program’s
machine code before execution and
determine whether it does anything
bad. Tricks like writing
self-modifying code mean that the evil
operations may not even exist until
later. But Java byte code was designed
for this kind of validation: it
doesn’t have the instructions a
malicious programmer would use to hide
their assault.Size: In the microprocessor world RISC is generally preferable
over CISC. It’s better to have a small
instruction set and use many fast
instructions to do a job than to have
many complex operations implemented as
single instructions. RISC designs
require fewer gates on the chip to
implement their instructions, allowing
for more room for pipelines and other
techniques to make each instruction
faster. In an interpreter, however,
none of this matters. If you want to
implement a single instruction for the
switch statement with a variable
length depending on the number of case
clauses, there’s no reason not to do
so. In fact, a complex instruction set
is an advantage for a web-based
language: it means that the same
program will be smaller (fewer
instructions of greater complexity),
which means less time to transfer
across our speed-limited network.
So when considering byte code vs native, consider which trade-offs you want to make between portability, security, size, and execution speed. If speed is the only important factor, go native. If any of the others are more important, go with bytecode.
I’ll also add that maintaining a series of OS and architecture-targeted compilations of the same code base for every release can become very tedious. It’s a huge win to use the same Java bytecode on multiple platforms and have it “just work.”