New Java looks to shake up desktop

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Good Point - let's use Assembly Language

As a programmer, I know that using 'objects' (a style of programming used in C++, Java, C#, VB.NET, etc) frequently slows down code by an order of magnitude (10 times, if you're not a techie) compared with using numerical primitives. Going back to using the processor's assemby languages would probably get us at least 10 fold performance gains over C++ (that Windows is written in). Why don't we do that?

In the real world, so much of the speed of a language depends on how it is used - all languages have natural strengths and weaknesses. Your article is correct in its points but concentrates on details that mostly cost a few percent in performance, and manages to miss the big picture. Also it ignores that a dynamically optimising JIT compiler has the potential of optimising code 'on the fly' - adapting to actual use of a program - that no normal compiler, however good, can do.

The one area which Java does suffer, IMHO, is it needs a good amount of memory on the computer, otherwise the OS will start paging (which is probably the 'slowness' that you are seeing). On the other hand, memory is amazingly cheap nowadays, and decent manufacturers ship boxes with perfectly adequate amounts of RAM.

At to your experiences - Java doesn't run on your computer unless you're running a Java program, or accessing a web-page with Java on. A smart person would have used the Autoruns tool from the SysInternals website to see what was starting up at boot-time. And, of course, if you were dumb enough to use Active Desktop to set your desktop background to a dynamic web-page that contains a Java applet, then that would cause a permanent drain. There are many ways to kill performance on a computer, ignorance of what's installed/running being the best!

Bottom line - I've found that Java programs run acceptably on my 6 year old 266MHz PII machine - so performance isn't a problem with Java itself.

/david

Posted by: David Hamilton   Posted on: 10/01/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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