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Thread: "Java is slow" myth

  1. #1
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    Default "Java is slow" myth

    So hello guys, i hear quite often those three words: Java is slow? So can someone explain me what does it means. Like it will never be fast like C/C++ etc. I don't understand that.

    Thanks in advance!!!


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    Default Re: "Java is slow" myth

    It is an old myth that is no longer true. It was true back in 2000, but isn't true anymore. Modern Java runs as fast as any other language. The "slow" myth was largely a criticism of the old pre-2000 virtual machine vs natively ran code.
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    Default Re: "Java is slow" myth

    aussiemcgr is right.
    Back in the days java was rather slow because its byte code needed to be interpreted to be run. Today, black voodoo magic (the JIT) happens in the background to compile the java byte code to native code on the run. This can be exactly as fast as C or C++ code can be if we assume that the JIT does good work.
    However, the JIT needs some time to heat up. So in the beginning java programs tend to be a little bit slow if you start them the first time. But once everything is cached and compiled things will go as fast as possible.

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    Default Re: "Java is slow" myth

    First of all, saying "Java is slow" is a bit too vague to mean anything. Slow when? On what system? Which part of it is slow?

    That being said, saying "Java is slow" is simply not true. It got a bad reputation in the 1990s due to requiring the JVM and thanks to novice programmers who didn't understand how to use the EDT, resulting in unresponsive GUI programs- but that was the fault of the programmers, not Java.

    Since then, Java has made several advancements, including the just-in-time compiler, that put many benchmarks on par (or even better than) other languages. Java has also expanded to include JavaEE (which powers many of the websites that you use every day), as well as Android.

    The one place Java can't go (and this is by design) is native code. So if you're writing code for a particular piece of hardware, then you'll have to use a lower-level language. But you can use JNI to call that native code from Java.

    That being said, one of the most important benchmarks is *programmer time*. Instead of thinking about how fast your code will go (which, like I said above, is probably fine), think about how long it will take you to accomplish a particular task. How fast can you get a window with some buttons up and running in C++? In Java, that would take about a minute. How fast can you set a server up? An Android app? In that way, Java is one of the fastest languages around. Also, what if you have to maintain some code written by somebody else? Would you rather that code be in C++, or in Java?

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    Default Re: "Java is slow" myth

    Guys, thanks for responses. That all makes sense. Thanks to all of you!!!
    Cheers!

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