From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2006-05-24T00:47:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Zed and Luis drop the bomb on Ruby's poor performance

2006/5/23, pat eyler <pat.eyler@gmail.com>:
> On 5/23/06, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > 2006/5/22, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov <ara.t.howard@noaa.gov>:
> > > i'm saying that gcc kills any vm both on speed and portability, including
> > > windows, and has decades of hard work put in.
> >
> > I wouldn't be so sure of that. I work with Java for several years now
> > and we do have performance critical parts in our application. First, I
> > doubt that a C++ version will show *significant* performance
> > improvements if at all (because there's a lot IO going on but also
> > because a JVM is neither slow nor dumb). Second, with a JVM you get a
> > lot of smartness with regard to memory handling etc., runtime
> > optimization and instrumentation. Current JVMs' instrumentation
> > interfaces give you a lot of options in analyzing runtime behavior of
> > your application.
>
> And how well will the Java app run across (list taken from
> http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html) :
>     * alpha*-*-*
>     * alpha*-dec-osf*
>     * alphaev5-cray-unicosmk*
>     * arc-*-elf
>     * arm-*-elf arm-*-coff arm-*-aout
>     * xscale-*-*
>     * avr
>     * Blackfin
>     * c4x
>     * DOS
>     * *-*-freebsd*
>     * h8300-hms
>     * hppa*-hp-hpux*
>     * hppa*-hp-hpux10
>     * hppa*-hp-hpux11
>     * *-*-linux-gnu
>     * i?86-*-linux*aout
>     * i?86-*-linux*
>     * i?86-*-sco3.2v5*
>     * i?86-*-solaris2.10
>     * i?86-*-udk
>     * ia64-*-linux
>     * ia64-*-hpux*
>     * *-ibm-aix*
>     * iq2000-*-elf
>     * m32c-*-elf
>     * m32r-*-elf
>     * m6811-elf
>     * m6812-elf
>     * m68k-hp-hpux
>     * mips-*-*
>     * mips-sgi-irix5
>     * mips-sgi-irix6
>     * powerpc*-*-* powerpc-*-sysv4
>     * powerpc-*-darwin*
>     * powerpc-*-elf powerpc-*-sysv4
>     * powerpc*-*-linux-gnu*
>     * powerpc-*-netbsd*
>     * powerpc-*-eabisim
>     * powerpc-*-eabi
>     * powerpcle-*-elf powerpcle-*-sysv4
>     * powerpcle-*-eabisim
>     * powerpcle-*-eabi
>     * s390-*-linux*
>     * s390x-*-linux*
>     * s390x-ibm-tpf*
>     * *-*-solaris2*
>     * sparc-sun-solaris2*
>     * sparc-sun-solaris2.7
>     * sparc-*-linux*
>     * sparc64-*-solaris2*
>     * sparcv9-*-solaris2*
>     * *-*-sysv*
>     * vax-dec-ultrix
>     * *-*-vxworks*
>     * x86_64-*-* amd64-*-*
>     * xtensa-*-elf
>     * xtensa-*-linux*
>     * Microsoft Windows
>     * OS/2
> Note that this list of install notes is not a list of supported hosts
> or targets. Not all supported hosts and targets are listed here, only
> the ones that require host-specific or target-specific information
> are.

Impressive list.

> Ara did say speed *and* portability ;)

You said gcc will beat on speed and portability. And I was arguing
that it does not necessarily beat Java on speed.  My own Java
portability experience extends to various versions of Windows, Linux
(x86) and Solaris (sparc).  No problems so far but of course the list
is smaller than the one you showed off with. :-)

Kind regards

robert

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