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Java speed?
From: |
Thor Sigvaldason |
Subject: |
Java speed? |
Date: |
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 13:53:44 -0400 (EDT) |
On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Manor Askenazi wrote:
>
> The next question to worry about is speed.
>
Two points here;
1) Just in Time compilers
These seem to be the make or break point for Java. If they
appear fast enough and are good enough, then Java is sure
to become very popular (imagine Netscape, Microsoft, etc.
having to develop only *1* source tree for each version of
their products.
2) Other developpers are investing
Many high profile software firms are developping for Java,
suggesting that they believe Java is/will be capable of
running large applications. Corel already has a demo suite
of its office software running under Java.
Some other thoughts on porting Swarm to Java;
* In one feld swoop, you will have expanded the potential
user base enormously (ie. all the non-UN*X users) without
alienating any current users (unless Java is not available
for some UN*X systems?).
* From anecdotal evidence, there seem to be many more
people who have some programming experience in Java than
in Objective-C.
* Java's "network-aware" structure and threading should make
parallelizing swarm code fairly straightforward.
* True electronic journals could be distributed in HTML/PDF
with the experiments included (that would be amazing).
* As you mentioned, no messing around with Tcl/tk, BLT, etc.
Things that worry me;
* Speed (as above): Does anyone out there have info on JIT
compiler's for Java?
* Openness: Sun seems to be very cagey about their licensing
of Java. I know that the developper's of the JDK for Linux
had to wait weeks to release their port while Sun lawyers
bickered.