platform mocha 
Bytecode , also termed portable code or p - code , is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter . Unlike human - readable source code , bytecodes are compact numeric codes , constants , and references ( normally numeric addresses ) that encode the result of compiler parsing and semantic analysis of things like type , scope , and nesting depths of program objects . They thus allow much better performance than interpreting source code directly . The name bytecode stems from instruction sets that have one - byte opcodes followed by optional parameters . Intermediate representations such as bytecode may be output by programming language implementations to ease interpretation , or it may be used to reduce hardware and operating system dependence by allowing the same code to run cross - platform , on different devices . Bytecode may often be either directly executed on a virtual machine ( a p - code machine i . e ., interpreter ), or it may be further compiled into machine code for better performance . In computing , source code is any collection of computer instructions , possibly with comments , written using a human - readable programming language , usually as ordinary text . The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers , who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source code . The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code understood by the computer . The machine code might then be stored for execution at a later time . Alternatively , source code may be interpreted and thus immediately executed . Mocha is a ___MASK92___ decompiler , which allows programmers to translate a program ' s bytecode into source code . A beta version of Mocha was released in 1996 , by Dutch developer Hanpeter van Vliet , alongside an obfuscator named Crema . A controversy erupted and he temporarily withdrew Mocha from public distribution . As of 2009 the program is still available for distribution , and may be used freely as long as it is not modified . Borland ' s JBuilder includes a decompiler based on Mocha . Van Vliet ' s websites went offline as he died of cancer on December 31 , 1996 at the age of 34 . A programmer , computer programmer , developer , dev , coder , or software engineer is a person who writes computer software . The term " computer programmer " can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software . One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst . A programmer ' s primary computer language ( Assembly , COBOL , C , C ++, C #, ___MASK92___ , Lisp , Python , etc .) is often prefixed to these titles , and those who work in a Web environment often prefix their titles with " Web ". The term " programmer " can be used to refer to a software developer , Web developer , mobile applications developer , embedded firmware developer , software engineer , computer scientist , or software analyst . However , members of these professions possess other software engineering skills , beyond programming ; for this reason , the term " programmer ", or " code monkey ", is sometimes considered an insulting or derogatory oversimplification of these other professions . This has sparked much debate amongst developers , analysts , computer scientists , programmers , and outsiders who continue to be puzzled at the subtle differences in the definitions of these occupations . In computer programming , a p - code machine , or portable code machine is a virtual machine designed to execute p - code ( the assembly language of a hypothetical CPU ). This term is applied both generically to all such machines ( such as the ___MASK82___ and MATLAB precompiled code ), and to specific implementations , the most famous being the p - Machine of the Pascal - P system , particularly the UCSD Pascal implementation .