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I just fell off my chair laughing. 50KLOC and 5 people is _tiny_. C++ developers work at projects about 100 times that size and still beat the performance of J

by groby_b 14y ago

I just fell off my chair laughing. 50KLOC and 5 people is _tiny_. C++ developers work at projects about 100 times that size and still beat the performance of Java easily. (Linux comes to mind. Firefox, Safari, Chrome. The various JITs are smaller, but still well beyond 50KLOC. Clang. Python.) Sorry, Java has many advantages. Speed isn't one of them.

codewright 14y ago
>Sorry, Java has many advantages. Speed isn't one of them. This is part of my problem, very few who don't have to confront the challenges or disadvantages of their technology of choice seem willing to acknowledge them. That is a dire problem in what is ostensibly an engineering discipline. We don't get to say concrete has higher tensile strength than steel just because we think concrete is the best thing ever. That programmers can't even agree on basic notions of what's true does a lot to discredit our field.
splicer 14y ago
> Linux comes to mind Linux is written in C, not C++.
pron 14y ago
Web browsers are not the best fit for Java because they require short startup times and must do their best not to waste too much RAM. Linux is an OS, requires predictability, and also must not waste RAM. Compilers certainly require fast startup, and might not even run long enough for the JVM optimizations to kick in. Java has many advantages, and speed is chief among them, but memory footprint certainly isn't. And I'm not sure how you can say that the software you mention beats Java (let alone easily). You have nothing to compare it to. Those programs' requirements preclude Java before any speed considerations are taken. If you can't spare lots of RAM, and don't have the time to wait for the JIT to profile and compile your code, Java isn't for you. But if you just want speed for an always-online application - especially if it requires serious concurrency - I'd say Java would be a better choice than C++, performance-wise, 9 times out of 10. If I were to pick an example to try and disprove my statement, I would actually choose Oracle or MySQL. But I don't know what requirements make them a better fit for C/C++ if, in fact, they are at all.

by groby_b 14y ago

codewright 14y ago

>Sorry, Java has many advantages. Speed isn't one of them. This is part of my problem, very few who don't have to confront the challenges or disadvantages of their technology of choice seem willing to acknowledge them. That is a dire problem in what is ostensibly an engineering discipline. We don't get to say concrete has higher tensile strength than steel just because we think concrete is the best thing ever. That programmers can't even agree on basic notions of what's true does a lot to discredit our field.

splicer 14y ago

> Linux comes to mind Linux is written in C, not C++.

pron 14y ago

Web browsers are not the best fit for Java because they require short startup times and must do their best not to waste too much RAM. Linux is an OS, requires predictability, and also must not waste RAM. Compilers certainly require fast startup, and might not even run long enough for the JVM optimizations to kick in. Java has many advantages, and speed is chief among them, but memory footprint certainly isn't. And I'm not sure how you can say that the software you mention beats Java (let alone easily). You have nothing to compare it to. Those programs' requirements preclude Java before any speed considerations are taken. If you can't spare lots of RAM, and don't have the time to wait for the JIT to profile and compile your code, Java isn't for you. But if you just want speed for an always-online application - especially if it requires serious concurrency - I'd say Java would be a better choice than C++, performance-wise, 9 times out of 10. If I were to pick an example to try and disprove my statement, I would actually choose Oracle or MySQL. But I don't know what requirements make them a better fit for C/C++ if, in fact, they are at all.