From: Michael Slater <slater@...>
Date: 2003-08-29T10:48:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Why would you abandon Ruby? (was)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Avi Bryant [mailto:avi@beta4.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 5:37 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: Why would you abandon Ruby? (was)

...
 
> Perl/Python/Ruby are all currently implemented using straight
> interpreters, whether bytecoded or not.  Modern implementations of
> Smalltalk use very sophisticated adaptive JIT compilers that can
> optimize away most of the cost of method lookup, inline heavy usage of
> blocks, and so on.  These are very similar to Java's HotSpot compiler,
> and have similar performance (for good reason: HotSpot was derived
> from Sun's Self project, which is a prototype-based Smalltalk).
> Interestingly, with this kind of JIT you get no benefit from static
> type information - so the notion that Java is faster because it's
> static is incorrect.

HotSpot came from Longview Technologies, a company Sun acquired. It had
nothing to do with any internal Sun project.

Even with HotSpot, the performance of Sun's VM never panned out to be
anything close to the impressive speeds you seem to be implying. Sun has had
to implement more and more native code in their VM and class libraries to
achieve better performance -- and reliability -- especially for building
client applications.

For years, most of the Java implementations have suffered from many serious
bugs and what can only be called design flaws. You may recall the infamous
memo from Sun system engineering regarding the problems with Java (and note
this is 3 years after Sun's HotSpot acquisition and subsequent evolution of
the technology):

http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=1321

As the memo goes onto mention, Python is much more resource efficient than
Java. As are the compiled OO (and GC) languages Eiffel and Sather. Now Java
has certainly improved since the time of the memo, but it is still plagued
by slowness and voracious resource usage, especially in large enterprise
systems.

--ms

#

Sun boosts Java with LongView purchase

London (02/19/97) -- Sun Microsystems announced last night that it has
acquired a startup called LongView Technologies, which develops technology
aimed at improving Java performance.

Financial terms and details concerning exactly how Sun will incorporate
technology from LongView were not announced. Sun officials did say the
acquisition will focus on Java performance, but that LongView does not
develop a just-in-time compiler.

"The performance will be a significant improvement over current technology
from any source," a JavaSoft official said. Officials indicated they expect
at least a doubling of speed.

Palo Alto, California-based LongView develops a virtual machine technology
called HotSpot which the company claims doubles the performance speed of
Java applets. HotSpot works with Java virtual machines (the run-time engine
that allows Java applets to run on browsers and operating systems across any
platform) to make Java applets run more efficiently and quickly, according
to LongView.

The LongView technology, which will be integrated into the Java virtual
machine will be available to all JavaSoft licensees, a JavaSoft official
said.

LongView's seven employees will immediately join the engineering staff at
Sun's JavaSoft division, according to Sun officials.

Sun plans to detail its plans for LongView's technologies at its 1997
Worldwide Java Developer Conference which will take place in San Francisco
on April.

http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-03-1997/swol-03-sunspots.html