All of the languages C, C++, Java, Perl, BASIC are compiled. their source code is read by a lexer/parser and transformed into another form. BASIC (ok some forms of BASIC that I've been told do this) would be an interpreted language because it uses an iterative approach to the source - each line is individually read, parsed and executed. C and C++ are both compiled to another source code format - assembler which is itself compiled to serialized machine code targetting a particular processor. When I look at Java, Perl and emacs I see a similarity in that each compiles to an internal abstract form which is then executed by a virtual machine.

I don't privilege the implementation of the virtual machine so that having an intermediate serialization of the compiler output separates one implementation from being scripted and the other not.