Perl does a compilation of your script to opcodes, then interprets those opcodes within a VM. (This, of course, is making the statement that all VM-compiled code is, at bottom, interpreted.) So, it's as compiled as Java is. The main difference between Perl and Java (as I see it and relevant to our discussion) is that Perl makes no pretensions to being a "compiled" language and, frankly, is proud of its interpretive nature. Java wants to play with "the big boys", so hypes up the fact that it compiles to some form of machine code. (That this machine cannot really exist for Java to have any claim of "better-than-C" is completely irrelevant.)