Java Performance/Python etc

[Steve Lamb]

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Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 8:00:10 AM, Simon wrote:
>>It just doesn't have the run-time speed
> It also doesn't have as rich a standard library - Java's is truly
> impressive but has some wierd ommissions (like regexps, but again you
> can vote for them!).

    I seriously doubt it is as impressive as what the Python community has put
together.  Of all the languages I looked at only Python had me staring at the
standard references thinking that I really could write a mail client.

    Of course, as I said, Java has two serious dings against it that will
never be erased and never, ever voted out.  I staunchly refuse to even
consider any language which forces people to learn a whole new set of terms
for concepts already defined.  That smacks of marketing.  The second is that
it is controlled by a commercial entity and, as such, is subject to changes at
the whim of that entities marketing and legal departments and whatever suits
happen to be in control at the moment.  After having seen what suits can dream
up not only in other companies but my own that is an unacceptable position for
a language to be in.

> But if the JVM and libraries were already loaded it would have been much
> faster! It's a bit like having to start Windows on an OS/2 box when you
> run a windows program.

    No, you missed the point.  It took 1 minute for it to load.  That is
unacceptable, period.  Perl and Python both can spew out hello world in all
its infinite glory in under a second.

> In web application servers (where the JVM etc is already loaded), Java
> servlettes blow the pants off all other forms of CGI (in terms of
> performance)!

    I seriously doubt that.  It has stiff competition in PHP alone.

> If Java ever takes off "on the desktop", no doubt the JVM and libraries will
> be preloaded - there'd still be a load time delay because Java does so much
> dynamic binding - it has to due to the dynamic nature of it's objects model
> (this is also one of the reasons that OS/2's WPS, which uses much courser
> grain SOM objects, is a bit slow.

    Hopefully that hell will never happen in my lifetime.  Maybe if Jave were
truly open and of the community I'd agree.  But it is not nor will it ever be
in the future.

- --
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
- -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------

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