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It's not fair to compare execution speed of Android apps and iPhone apps. There's always a tradeoff between faster development time in a higher level language a

It's not fair to compare execution speed of Android apps and iPhone apps. There's always a tradeoff between faster development time in a higher level language and getting better performance in a lower level language, which has been debated to death on the nets for years. The fact is, the same code runs faster on Android 2.2 than it does on 2.1. That's not bogus, it's an objective measurement.

wmf 16y ago
When comparing Java and Objective-C, which one is higher level and which is lower level? The fact that Java uses bytecode doesn't necessarily increase productivity.
- mtinkerhess 16y ago
  I'd say the standout feature that puts Java at a higher level than Objective-C is garbage collection. You could also say that Objective-C is lower level becuase it's a strict superset of C. Admittedly, it's a murky distinction. Is there a good argument for why one might consider Obj-C to be the higher level language?
  - othermaciej 16y ago
    Objective-C supports garbage collection (optionally).
    - jcnnghm 16y ago
      Not on the iPhone. I'd trade performance for garbage collection. Memory leaks are very common.
  - wmf 16y ago
    I'm not familiar with Objective C; is Smalltalk-style method dispatch considered more powerful than Java method dispatch?
- pkulak 16y ago
  I'd agree that Java isn't inherently better than Objective C. There are things I like and dislike about both. It's not like comparing Ruby to C. However, you do get other advantages to using Java. In Android, every app runs in it's own VM, so multi-tasking has always been a no-brainer. I guess Apple solved the sandboxing issues, but it probably wasn't easy, and I wonder what tough decisions they had to make. Plus, it's at least in theory possible to compile any language you like to Java bytecode. So, we could see Ruby or Python apps for Android at some point. That's never going to happen with Apple for about a dozen reasons, the least of which is probably Objective C.

wmf 16y ago

When comparing Java and Objective-C, which one is higher level and which is lower level? The fact that Java uses bytecode doesn't necessarily increase productivity.

mtinkerhess 16y ago
I'd say the standout feature that puts Java at a higher level than Objective-C is garbage collection. You could also say that Objective-C is lower level becuase it's a strict superset of C. Admittedly, it's a murky distinction. Is there a good argument for why one might consider Obj-C to be the higher level language?
- othermaciej 16y ago
  Objective-C supports garbage collection (optionally).
  - jcnnghm 16y ago
    Not on the iPhone. I'd trade performance for garbage collection. Memory leaks are very common.
- wmf 16y ago
  I'm not familiar with Objective C; is Smalltalk-style method dispatch considered more powerful than Java method dispatch?
pkulak 16y ago
I'd agree that Java isn't inherently better than Objective C. There are things I like and dislike about both. It's not like comparing Ruby to C. However, you do get other advantages to using Java. In Android, every app runs in it's own VM, so multi-tasking has always been a no-brainer. I guess Apple solved the sandboxing issues, but it probably wasn't easy, and I wonder what tough decisions they had to make. Plus, it's at least in theory possible to compile any language you like to Java bytecode. So, we could see Ruby or Python apps for Android at some point. That's never going to happen with Apple for about a dozen reasons, the least of which is probably Objective C.