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I was countering the headline, which wasn't correct. Java isn't slower than C in general. It may be in specific cases, for specific programmers, etc but that's

by axod 17y ago

I was countering the headline, which wasn't correct. Java isn't slower than C in general. It may be in specific cases, for specific programmers, etc but that's not what the headline stated. The title takes one specific application in a particular niche, used in a certain way which a particular programmer can't get to run fast enough, and concludes that Java isn't fast enough. Faulty logic. The argument about JGit vs C-git for me isn't something I feel you can learn anything from.

wvenable 17y ago
> Java isn't slower than C in general. Really? In general? That statements seams worse than the original headline. Is Java faster than C for anything?
- axod 17y ago
  It completely depends. Both are silly generalizations. Yes Java can be faster than C in some situations. Can C ever be faster than assembly? Well, in theory no. But in practice, sometimes. Depends if you're a master assembly programmer who hand optimizes everything.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    "Yes Java can be faster than C in some situations." Unless the person writing the C implementation is grossly incompetent, I would like to see even one example for that.
    - axod 17y ago
      You can't see a situation where the JVM can optimize things, inline code, etc at runtime and beat a general C implementation? :/
      - wvenable 17y ago
        A Java application will invariably use more much memory than C implementation of almost any non-trivial application. You can inline code all you want, but it'll never change that. The JVM isn't magical -- it's not going to solve all your performance problems. When you're allocating a million tiny little objects with all the necessary accounting you can't optimize that away. BTW, if it's so obvious why haven't you still provided at least one non-trivial concrete example of Java faster than C?
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        I would say that any C programmer worth his salt (unlike me) knows how to profile the code under a meaningful workload and how to optimize it to be faster. I remember I used the shortest possible integers and the register keyword in the late 80's far too many times to count. The point of somewhat higher-level languages like Java (I refuse to say Java is a high-level language - it would be one in the late 80s, but not today) is not to make programs run faster, but to make it easier to make them run correctly.

by axod 17y ago

wvenable 17y ago

> Java isn't slower than C in general. Really? In general? That statements seams worse than the original headline. Is Java faster than C for anything?

axod 17y ago
It completely depends. Both are silly generalizations. Yes Java can be faster than C in some situations. Can C ever be faster than assembly? Well, in theory no. But in practice, sometimes. Depends if you're a master assembly programmer who hand optimizes everything.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  "Yes Java can be faster than C in some situations." Unless the person writing the C implementation is grossly incompetent, I would like to see even one example for that.
  - axod 17y ago
    You can't see a situation where the JVM can optimize things, inline code, etc at runtime and beat a general C implementation? :/
    - wvenable 17y ago
      A Java application will invariably use more much memory than C implementation of almost any non-trivial application. You can inline code all you want, but it'll never change that. The JVM isn't magical -- it's not going to solve all your performance problems. When you're allocating a million tiny little objects with all the necessary accounting you can't optimize that away. BTW, if it's so obvious why haven't you still provided at least one non-trivial concrete example of Java faster than C?
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      I would say that any C programmer worth his salt (unlike me) knows how to profile the code under a meaningful workload and how to optimize it to be faster. I remember I used the shortest possible integers and the register keyword in the late 80's far too many times to count. The point of somewhat higher-level languages like Java (I refuse to say Java is a high-level language - it would be one in the late 80s, but not today) is not to make programs run faster, but to make it easier to make them run correctly.