Will Java go native?

[Bruno Medeiros]

On 19/09/2013 19:44, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> Am 19.09.2013 19:44, schrieb Bruno Medeiros:
>> On 19/09/2013 11:06, deadalnix wrote:
>>>
>>>>> *Java's sluggish performance was what made me look for alternatives
>>>>> in the first place, and I found D.
>>>>
>>>> I accept this as true as it is a statement by you about your decision
>>>> making, but Java 8 is not Java 1. Early desktop Java was pure
>>>> interpretation, and hence slow. Modern Java, via the JIT, generally
>>>> executes native code. With Java 7 and method handles and invokedynamic,
>>>> the world changed even more and now computationally intensive codes can
>>>> run basically as fast using Java as using C, C++, Fortran, D, Rust, Go.
>>>> (After initial "warm up" of the JIT.)
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, the warm up is usually a severe drawback for user applications.
>>> Server app do not suffer from it that much. I guess that is why java is
>>> so much used server side, but not that much to create GUI apps.
>>
>> Yeah, tell me about it. :/
>> When I was writing the new parser for DDT I explored and tested a few
>> optimizations that the JVM does to ellide object allocations
>> (essentially escape analysis to see when an object can be treated as
>> value object, and deallocated automatically at the end of some scope).
>> I wanted to use a certain pervasive code idiom in the parser that would
>> make the code more elegant, but less performant if this optimization was
>> not made.
>> ( http://www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/messages/52187462/ )
>> Fortunately the JVM is its later incarnations is quite smart in its
>> escape analysis, but unfortunately this is all done at runtime, whereas
>> a lot of it could be performed compile-time. :( But it seems the Java
>> folks (at least for OpenJDK) have a big aversion to performing any kind
>> of compile-time optimizations, even though a lot could be done here.
>>
>>
>
>
> I once read in a blog, an entry from an ex-JVM engineer from Sun,
> describing that anything that disputed Hotspot JIT capabilities was tabu
> and ideas about native compilation were frowned upon.
>
> Sadly I don't remember any longer where I read it.
>
> --
> Paulo

Even without seeing that article, I can well believe it. It seems they 
shun away completely from compile-time optimizations, and not much 
reasoning is given to that. It seems almost a purely political/marketing 
move: like if they want to push the mantra that JITing is the be all and 
end all of compiler optimization, and doing any kind of compile-time 
optimization would be admitting that compile-time is also important (and 
somehow making Java more prone to direct performance comparisons to 
other languages/platforms?)

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Engineer