Exupery, a bytecode compiler, can now compile the bytecode benchmark.
It is 2.5 times faster than the interpreter for this benchmark and
about 5 times faster for simple integer benchmarks. It should be easy
to produce code that runs about 10 times faster than the interpreter.

A more detailed performance analysis can be found at:
http://www.kampjes.demon.co.uk/articles/exuperyPerformance20030801.html

The bytecode benchmark includes a few sends including sends to
primitives. Most of the key functionality is now in place but Exupery
doesn't yet handle very many bytecodes or more than one compiled
method at a time.

The 0.03 release will handle more bytecodes and the 0.04 release will
handle more than one cached compiled method. Hopefully the 0.05
release will be generally useful.

Bryce