A coding kata of mine is to implement an expression parser, evaluator, compiler and mini VM (a loop over an array with a switch, it's not hard at all) in 1 to 3 hours in new languages.
A lot of people have experience with simple VMs. There's nothing super unique about this problem that requires every claim about it to be accompanied by a proof by construction.
Either you missed the context or are pulling a straw man. Building a simple VM is not unique, but can you build one that will be competitive with the other's in a reasonable timeframe?
Yes, I could. Sorry, I wasn't trying to fight a straw man. I sincerely thought you were saying you wouldn't accept estimates of the project's difficulty in lieu of proof.
- a simple VM implementation - code using a JIT framework - using Apache Impala on this particular dataset
which performs on par and didn't take astonishingly long to write then these are just vague claims and hypotheses.