> But uses significantly more memory and requires a VM. Do they really use more memory for equivalent code. e.g. Is jetty that much worse than apache? I don't r

> But uses significantly more memory and requires a VM. Do they really use more memory for equivalent code. e.g. Is jetty that much worse than apache? I don't really think so. Even if the intrinsic memory consumption of a java object is more than one for a C struct that does not mean it will in practice actually use more memory, or that it has too be that way due to unassailable theoretical grounds. See Realtime java for an example. > The VM probably is written in C, too. Historical reasons only. It could have been fortran or pascal. Its not that C is magical in its low level. There are a whole bunch of other options as well. C was easy to get and it came with the OS for many developers when computers became more accessible due to lower costs in the late 70's and 80's. C is slow is not an uncommon opinion among fortran programmers, for good reasons. In practice the C++ parts of the different JVMs are getting smaller each release. And there have been JVMs that are written in Java with a bootstrap interpreter in ASM. As an OS with just java and assembly. After all, the language is turing complete... Don't take me wrong Java is not some promised land without issues, its got plenty of those. I am just refuting the idea that just because it written in C it is fast claim. GCC/XLC/ICC are not magic, neither is HotSpot or Vuze or J9 or any other JVM system. In many ways C and Java are alike, crap languages introduced in a time when other, better alternatives where available. Only saved by industry adoption and decades of engineering work to make them fly. Rust is so interesting as it has industry attention and is also academically interesting as bringing something new to the programming world. (at least I am not aware of any pl with the borrow checker concept worked out).