Harry,
The bugaboo surrounding interpreted languages has always been that they
are too slow. Years ago, the only "serious" languages were those that were
compiled. A program that already has the binary op-codes that are directly
fed into the cpu is going to have some speed advantages over a program that
has to be parsed by another program (an interpreter) on the fly before those
op-codes are created. Java is no different. However, the clear benefit of
an interpreted language is its portability, a feature that is completely
foreign to a program in a proprietary binary format. Another feature of
interpreted-language programs is their ease of maintenence & testing.
Java will have the reputation for being slow with sophisticated applications
until some improvements are made: embedding part of the interpreter in
firmware and cacheing sections of the byte-coded source will help. Another
stumbling block is http, a notoriously slow application-level protocol. A
better selection would be nfs, which, I believe is now supported in SUNW's
Java.
I've heard that these improvements are already in the works. Unlike MSFT,
SUNW is good at solving technical problems with creative, well-engineered
solutions. They already have the most sophisticated Operating System design
and implementation in the industry and can easily apply that software
technology to optimizing their Java interpreter.
Java may never run as fast as a c or c++ program, but it may run fast enough
for most applications. That prospect, along with the great advantage of
cross-platform independance should propel Java forward in the marketplace.
cheers,
cherylw |
