Earlier quoted context omitted.
One more thing - the use of a stack-based bytecode is also curious. PHP itself (the Zend engine) uses a register-based bytecode (well, it uses a horror-show of an in-memory bytecode-like-thing, which could best be described as a register-based bytecode). The PHP engine details leak into the language a lot, so the difficulties they describe aren't unexpected. Not only that, but bleeding-edge JITs typically use registe…
As noted elsewhere in this thread, a stack-based design typically produces more compact bytecode. Compactness was a concern for us because of the size of FB's PHP code base. Also, generally speaking a stack-based design tends to be easier to deal with when working to get a prototype VM up and running quickly. Many of the advantages of register-based designs (ability to optimize by rewriting the program at the bytecod…
Would using a register-based bytecode not have been useful for the x64 JIT?