From: Isaac Gouy <igouy@...>
Date: 2005-11-06T07:22:10+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Performance vs. Java

MenTaLguY wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 05:45 +0900, Robert Bazinet wrote:
> > I am new to this list and Ruby in general. I had read a blog post recently
> > that concerned me a bit,
> > http://www.pankaj-k.net/archives/2005/11/ruby_or_java_a.html.
> >
> > The post points out two apps written to do the same task the same way, one
> > in Java and the other in Ruby. The Java application turned out to be 12x
> > faster than the Ruby app. I know we are not really comparing apples to
> > apples here but I was wondering if there are any real-world test results out
> > there that show Ruby's performance vs. other languages and where Ruby stacks
> > up.
>
> In most cases, the same algorithm implemented in Java and in Ruby is
> going to be faster/more memory-efficient in Java, at least with the
> current Ruby implementation (there is no "Ruby VM" as the author
> supposes; the current interpreter just walks an AST).

Interestingly we can also use the Java VM as a bytecode interpreter
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=ruby&lang2=javaxint&sort=fullcpu


> However, Ruby can often make more efficient algorithms easier to write
> and use (hence the performance benefits that have been observed with
> Rails).
>
> If speed is your most important criterion, for which all others must be
> sacrificed, Ruby is (probably) not the right language; but usually there
> are other factors, like programmer time -- especially for personal
> projects!.  In those cases, the analysis that needs to be made is
> whether a language is fast enough for your specific task.
>
> If anyone offers you a universally applicable "performance metric", it
> is an illusion.
> 
> -mental