Supportsoft Glossary

What Runtime Environments Do During Program Execution

A runtime or execution environment is the software layer that allows an application to run. It provides all the elements (resources, services and system interactions) needed for running the application's code correctly (for example, memory management, input/output, error handling and libraries).

Different programming languages have a number of different components that support their runtime. For example, Java uses the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to support its runtime environment and execute Java code. JavaScript, on the other hand, has various JavaScript engines (like V8) to execute JavaScript code in a browser or server-based environment like Node.js.

The runtime environment abstracts hardware-level details, allowing your application to behave consistently across all types of systems. The runtime loads your application into memory and interprets/executes the application code in real time. It executes processes in real time. Modern runtimes have additional features; for example, they now have garbage collection, security controls and performance optimisation methods.

Since the runtime handles the low-level operations of your application's execution, the developer does not need to perform the manual management of system resources while developing the application logic. Thus, the runtime environment is the bridge between your code and the hardware, enabling you to run applications reliably and predictably on different platforms.