D vs VM-based platforms

[Tom]

You people can list a million of (mostly) theoretical benefits in having a VM. Java/.NET apps will 
continue to be damn slow despite of these statements (Java the most). That is the simple and 
self-evident truth. Aside from, the idea of having a CPU core for the exclusive use of a VM is a 
*total* waste. I don't trust in hardware solutions for software problems.

Just my opinion. :)

Tom;

Benji Smith escribió:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> I just don't get the reason for a VM. It seems like a solution looking 
>> for a problem.
> 
> Some of the benefits of using a VM platform:
> 
> 1) Dynamic classloading. Linking is greatly simplified, and my code 
> doesn't need to be written differently depending on whether I'm linking 
> dynamically or statically.
> 
> 2) Better tools for profiling, debugging, reflection, and runtime 
> instrumentation than are typically available for natively-compiled 
> languages.
> 
> 3) Better memory management: with the memory manager located in the VM, 
> rather than in the application code, the collection of garbage is much 
> more well-defined. Since all classes are loaded into the same VM 
> instance, there's only a single heap. Consequently, there's never an 
> issue of what happens when an object passes from one module to another 
> (as can be the case when a native library passes an object into the main 
> application, or vice versa).
> 
> 4) Better security/sandboxing. If you write a pluggable application in 
> C++, how will you restrict plugin authors from monkeying with your 
> application data structures? In the JVM or the CLR, the VM provides 
> security mechanisms to restrict the functionality of sandboxed code. A 
> particular CLR assembly might, for example, be restricted from accessing 
> the file system or the network connection. You can't do that with native 
> code.
> 
> Sure, it's possible for natively-compiled languages to offer most of the 
> same bells and whistles as dynamic languages or VM-based platforms. But, 
> in the real world, those abstractions are usually difficult to implement 
> in native code, so they become available much more readily in virtual 
> machine.
> 
> --benji