Java “Virtual Machine” vs. Python “Interpreter” parlance?

Question

It seems rare to read of a Python \"virtual machine\" while in Java \"virtual machine\" is used all the time.

Both interpret byte codes; why call one a virtual machi

Answer 1

Probably one reason for the different terminology is that one normally thinks of feeding the python interpreter raw human-readable source code and not worrying about bytecode and all that.

In Java, you have to explicitly compile to bytecode and then run just the bytecode, not source code on the VM.

Even though Python uses a virtual machine under the covers, from a user's perspective, one can ignore this detail most of the time.