Is JavaScript interpreted by design?
<p>I am cautious of asking this question because it might appear overly fastidious. I just opened up JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, and it states of the first page of chapter 1</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>"JavaScript is a high-level, dynamic, untyped interpreted programming
  language”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>So am I to take it that the interpreted part is a requirement in the language specification, or is it misleading to say that the language is an interpreted programming language when respecting the difference between a language and its many implementations?</p>

<p>There are no static compilers for JavaScript apparently -
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1118138/is-there-a-native-machine-code-compiler-for-javascript">Is there a native machine code compiler for JavaScript?</a> so maybe it's just a reflection of this.</p>
