The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Heat output: 52,000 BTU/hr

That's more than my kitchen stove, with all four burners on high!

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

GF:
As for the desktop - take a look at Netbeans, or Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernable speed difference from native .

Whoa, whoa. Netbeans? You are arguing for speed with Java and you cite Netbeans?

Netbeans is the slowest program I've ever used. Ever.

Any program can be slow if not written well but I still notice Java apps running slower than their native counterpart. Eclipse works well enough but it's still much slower than other IDEs from what I've seen (and this is with a brand new, basic Eclipse install).

Slightly off topic but does anyone know what the first gen Motorola Razrs ran? Did it have a lot of Java apps or no? Either way, my Razr is the biggest piece of shit ever and runs slower than my older phones ever did and I suspect it's because of poorly written code (in Java, C, whatever, it's bad).

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...

But perhaps it might actually become faster when it's shrunken down?

I think I recently heard that the apparent slowness a user feels is in part due to the Java class loader sifting through the compressed CLASSES.ZIP archive, looking for the class it needs...

So if Java were shrunken down by getting rid of rarely used classes, maybe, just maybe it would get faster?

Volmarias · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

SomeCoder:
Slightly off topic but does anyone know what the first gen Motorola Razrs ran? Did it have a lot of Java apps or no? Either way, my Razr is the biggest piece of shit ever and runs slower than my older phones ever did and I suspect it's because of poorly written code (in Java, C, whatever, it's bad).

Who is your provider? Mine is awful slow, too, and I've heard replacing the firmware with the factory firmware would speed it up significantly, but I haven't had the heart to try. The phone doesn't run the JVM as the OS, it runs the JVM for J2ME apps explicitly (you'll notice when you close them that you're given the option to pause, terminate, or resume).

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

GF:
Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernible speed difference from native .

My experience is 3 years old now, but Eclipse ran like a one-legged jellyfish crossing a salt lake. Maybe you need to improve your discernment skills?

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

SomeCoder:
Eclipse works well enough but it's still much slower than other IDE's from what I've seen (and this is with a brand new, basic Eclipse install).

Of course, the speed can also depend on just how many network hops you are away from the machine that's actually running the Eclipse IDE. Sometimes it can just be so exciting to watch the paint dry on the pull-down menus. On the other hand, I recently was surprised by the sheer speed when it's running on the very same UNIX box that's also handling my dtlogin. (In other words, no additional encrypted ssh connections to even more UNIX boxes...)

I really need to test drive Eclipse right on my desktop PC sometime when I get around to it.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
SomeCoder:
Slightly off topic but does anyone know what the first gen Motorola Razrs ran? Did it have a lot of Java apps or no? Either way, my Razr is the biggest piece of shit ever and runs slower than my older phones ever did and I suspect it's because of poorly written code (in Java, C, whatever, it's bad).

Who is your provider? Mine is awful slow, too, and I've heard replacing the firmware with the factory firmware would speed it up significantly, but I haven't had the heart to try. The phone doesn't run the JVM as the OS, it runs the JVM for J2ME apps explicitly (you'll notice when you close them that you're given the option to pause, terminate, or resume).

Verizon is my current provider for what that's worth.

As for the Eclipse comment, I most often run it from my local machine with no network hops.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
Guess what, I use eclipse too. And I had the same freezing issue. The problem? Swap issues would cause eclipse to do a LOT of paging. Someone wrote a workaround for it, but upgrading to more than 512MB did the trick too. Once that happened, I never had a slowdown with eclipse.
Actually, if you're having a 20 second slowdown for autocomplete, you're either running on a P3, or you're using waaaay too many libraries for your own good.

You're right, I shouldn't expect 1GB of memory on a Core 2 Duo machine to be able to run Eclipse at a satisfactory speed. I suppose I should upgrade to a Core 2 Quad with 8GB of RAM to use an IDE.

Volmarias · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

sweavo:
GF:
Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernible speed difference from native .

My experience is 3 years old now, but Eclipse ran like a one-legged jellyfish crossing a salt lake. Maybe you need to improve your discernment skills?

HotSpot compiling (if I understand right) will actually turn methods that are called enough times (100 is the default value, again, iirc) into real, honest to goodness native code, instead of interpreting them.

Also, there's been a good amount of work in 3 years, and I strongly suspect your experience is based off of factors such as the age of your machine, processor speed, memory size, and what you're comparing it against. Eclipse has a SHIT BRICK TON of features, so complaining that it's slow vs MS VC++ 6.0 or your favorite IDE Lite or something is an unfair comparison. Startup times for Eclipse on my machine are comparable to startup times for VS 2005, and intellitext lookup delay is acceptable (500ms at worst, usually).

Frankly, it has incredible features, such as call hierarchy, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Volmarias · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Volmarias:
Guess what, I use eclipse too. And I had the same freezing issue. The problem? Swap issues would cause eclipse to do a LOT of paging. Someone wrote a workaround for it, but upgrading to more than 512MB did the trick too. Once that happened, I never had a slowdown with eclipse.
Actually, if you're having a 20 second slowdown for autocomplete, you're either running on a P3, or you're using waaaay too many libraries for your own good.
You're right, I shouldn't expect 1GB of memory on a Core 2 Duo machine to be able to run Eclipse at a satisfactory speed. I suppose I should upgrade to a Core 2 Quad with 8GB of RAM to use an IDE.

Something is horribly wrong with your setup, then. Like, seriously wrong. I'd start trying to debug the problem right away, because that's just.... wow.

Addendum (2008-03-27 14:22):

Anon:
You're right, I shouldn't expect 1GB of memory on a Core 2 Duo machine to be able to run Eclipse at a satisfactory speed. I suppose I should upgrade to a Core 2 Quad with 8GB of RAM to use an IDE.

Something is horribly wrong with your setup, then. Like, seriously wrong. I'd start trying to debug the problem right away, because that's just.... wow.

Edit: Try somethin like this: http://blog.xam.dk/archives/68-Eclipse-and-memory-settings.html to increase the JVM memory use size. You might want to look at the docs to see the args to specify different garbage collectors, which may help you further.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
aaawww:
Anon:
Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...

well, me thinks that some while ago the myth of slowness of java desktop applications was debunked...

otho, i like to play the midp dweller roguelike
When's the last time you used a Java desktop application? I use one daily, it's based on Eclipse, so any of the "it's just Swing" arguments can be chucked out the window because Eclipse uses SWT which actually uses native widgets.

It's the slowest freaking thing I've ever used and it's even more hungry for memory than Firefox loading an AJAX web application. Once it finally gets loaded and running, it's fast enough for typing text.

But every couple of minutes - FREEZE! It just stops. Best guess is that this is the Java garbage collector freezing the entire application for 10 seconds.

Whenever it needs to load something (for example, to autocomplete some text) - FREEZE! The entire application stops for 10-20 seconds.

Try and do anything more complicated than text editing, and you're in for even more slowdowns.

So, no, Java being slow on the desktop is NOT A MYTH. If you've ever used a Java desktop application recently, you'd know that.

the GC doesn't do anything while it detects user activity in Java... you can't even force it to collect, unlike in the .NET framework where you can. That's a reason why some apps have such big memory footprints, they wait for a lull in activity before they cleanup.

I've seen/worked with/written/laughed at some hideously slow .NET applications, you don't see me blaming the Framework.

...perhaps it has some quintiple nested loop operations with hundreds of String concatentation operations.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

yEAH rIGHT:
...and if you go to www.e10k.net, you can buy one of them at kentucky steakhouse !

No you can't, "You are not authorized to view this page"

DZ-Jay · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Flash:
El_Heffe:
A "floor" of developers? Is that a new unit of measurement? How many developers in a floor?

It's one of those variable units of measurement...like the length of the king's forearm.

1 floor of developers = from 20 (Parsippany, NJ) to 120 (mid-town Manhattan, NY)

Maybe the OP can specify the value for this story.

That's how they measured them back in the '90s. Nowadays, the popular unit is the Cube Farm. 1 cf of developers = 1,200 (Delhi, India).

 -dZ.

DZ-Jay · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

GF:
Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernible speed difference from native .

Difference from "native" what, Eclipse? Otherwise, your talking apples and oranges.

-dZ.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

yEAH rIGHT:
...and if you go to www.e10k.net, you can buy one of them at kentucky steakhouse !

Kentucky Steakhouse has the best servers... they are really fast and they always get my order right.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

My advanced algorithms professor mathematically proved in class that Java's garbage collection was not slower than standard methods, so if your program runs slow it's not that.

It has it's pros and cons, but most people don't even know what they are.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Try upping your JVM heap settings since the defaults

Now that brings back memories. I sold out to Microsoft years ago and forgot the wonders of the Java world.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

eryn:
Anon:
aaawww:
Anon:
Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...

well, me thinks that some while ago the myth of slowness of java desktop applications was debunked...

otho, i like to play the midp dweller roguelike
When's the last time you used a Java desktop application? I use one daily, it's based on Eclipse, so any of the "it's just Swing" arguments can be chucked out the window because Eclipse uses SWT which actually uses native widgets.

It's the slowest freaking thing I've ever used and it's even more hungry for memory than Firefox loading an AJAX web application. Once it finally gets loaded and running, it's fast enough for typing text.

But every couple of minutes - FREEZE! It just stops. Best guess is that this is the Java garbage collector freezing the entire application for 10 seconds.

Whenever it needs to load something (for example, to autocomplete some text) - FREEZE! The entire application stops for 10-20 seconds.

Try and do anything more complicated than text editing, and you're in for even more slowdowns.

So, no, Java being slow on the desktop is NOT A MYTH. If you've ever used a Java desktop application recently, you'd know that.

the GC doesn't do anything while it detects user activity in Java... you can't even force it to collect, unlike in the .NET framework where you can. That's a reason why some apps have such big memory footprints, they wait for a lull in activity before they cleanup.

I've seen/worked with/written/laughed at some hideously slow .NET applications, you don't see me blaming the Framework.

...perhaps it has some quintiple nested loop operations with hundreds of String concatentation operations.

You can't force the .NET framework to garbage collect either. You can suggest that it run the GC, but it won't necessarily do it on that exact call.

Also, you should complain about the .NET framework. From what I've seen, any argument against Java's slowness is equally as valid with .NET :)

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
Startup times for Eclipse on my machine are comparable to startup times for VS 2005, and intellitext lookup delay is acceptable (500ms at worst, usually).

You're joking, right? You've got to be joking.

Visual Studio 2005 starts up instantly on my machine. No wait. It just starts.

Eclipse takes 20 seconds to get going, and then freezes every few minutes for no apparently reason.

Visual Studio 2005 never makes me wait to autocomplete with IntelliSense. Eclipse, on the other hand, occasionally makes me wait a few minutes before displaying the autocomplete and then instantly hiding it because it timed out since it took so long to load.

There's a pretty stark difference in speed between Visual Studio 2005 and Eclipse. Which may be because Eclipse takes almost triple the memory, according to the Task Manager.

Zonkers · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

gabba:
So now you can understand why Sun is sitting on a mountain of cash despite essentially having no product. Well, except for Java. Well, so really no product.

Since when is hardware not a product when compared to software?

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

I run Netbeans 6, and I don't have any problems with speed. (Windows XP, Athlon64 2800+ with 1GB memory)

danixdefcon5 · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

gabba:
Compare this to Google, which built a multi-billion dollar empire using cheap commodity hardware.
So now you can understand why Sun is sitting on a mountain of cash despite essentially having no product. Well, except for Java. Well, so really no product.

And that image is the reason we're stuck using crappy x86-based PC's instead of the RISC-based PPC archs or others that are much more efficient than the aging x86. Search for Seymour Cray and his mantra on the 2 oxen and 1024 chicken.

As for Sun hardware, they're fairly decent, I once worked with some e25k's (though not as nearly uberspecced like the ones in this WTF) and I can say, if you're able to take down one of these babies, your load is definitely not suited for anything short of a mainframe ;)

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
When's the last time you used a Java desktop application? I use one daily, it's based on Eclipse, so any of the "it's just Swing" arguments can be chucked out the window because Eclipse uses SWT which actually uses native widgets.
It's the slowest freaking thing I've ever used and it's even more hungry for memory than Firefox loading an AJAX web application. Once it finally gets loaded and running, it's fast enough for typing text.

But every couple of minutes - FREEZE! It just stops. Best guess is that this is the Java garbage collector freezing the entire application for 10 seconds.

Whenever it needs to load something (for example, to autocomplete some text) - FREEZE! The entire application stops for 10-20 seconds.

Try and do anything more complicated than text editing, and you're in for even more slowdowns.

So, no, Java being slow on the desktop is NOT A MYTH. If you've ever used a Java desktop application recently, you'd know that.

Maybe you ought to upgrade that old 486 you're using?

VGR · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

cparker:
esse:
I though the "Java is SLOW" went out of fashion back in 2000?
Bad troll, keep up.
Except that Java is slow (on lower-end systems, anyway).

Then you're running crappy programs.

I test all Swing applications I write on a P2-400 running Windows 98 SE. They come up in five to ten seconds. Care to guess how long Word 97 takes to come up?

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
various set-top cable boxes (supposedly - not in the US), and other devices that have no business running something as slow as Java.

And Java now comes full circle, running on the hardware it was initially designed for.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

danixdefcon5:
As for Sun hardware, they're fairly decent, I once worked with some e25k's (though not as nearly uberspecced like the ones in this WTF) and I can say, if you're able to take down one of these babies, your load is definitely not suited for anything short of a mainframe ;)

I was once admin for a site that had roughly 7 million unique visitors per month. It had a database backend, dynamic content, a user registration feature, a knowledge base, and so on. We ran it all on Sun hardware: an Ultra 1 with 4 SCSI disks hanging off of it. Our dev server was a Sparc 20. We also has Sun sales weenies trying to get us to "modernize", and they pulled the same nonsense with us, trying to buy into their enterprise junk for millions (support contracts required, of course).

It doesn't take that much horsepower to run a website, as long as you build it right.

powerlord · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Volmarias:
Startup times for Eclipse on my machine are comparable to startup times for VS 2005, and intellitext lookup delay is acceptable (500ms at worst, usually).
You're joking, right? You've got to be joking.
Visual Studio 2005 starts up instantly on my machine. No wait. It just starts.

Eclipse takes 20 seconds to get going, and then freezes every few minutes for no apparently reason.

Visual Studio 2005 never makes me wait to autocomplete with IntelliSense. Eclipse, on the other hand, occasionally makes me wait a few minutes before displaying the autocomplete and then instantly hiding it because it timed out since it took so long to load.

There's a pretty stark difference in speed between Visual Studio 2005 and Eclipse. Which may be because Eclipse takes almost triple the memory, according to the Task Manager.

I'll admit, my 2.4GHz, 1MB RAM machine is starting to age now, but VS2005 takes 5 seconds to bring up the Start page the first time I load it.

NetBeans 6.0 takes 25 seconds to load (4 before it even shows the startup logo and progress bar).

Eclipse 3.2 takes 3 seconds to pop up the select Workspace dialog and another 15 seconds to finish launching the actual program after I select a workspace.

These are all cold starts. The programs all load noticably faster if I have recently closed them: VS: 2 seconds, NetBeans 5 seconds, Eclipse: 4 seconds.

Side Note: I use none of these tools regularly. The only one that has any addons installed is Eclipse with the Visual Editor addon for making SWT forms.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

So you can! WTF?

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

I use Eclipse on a PentiumD with 1G. It does get pretty slow sometimes. One thing to watch out for, is that by default, Eclipse will re-compile /build every time you save a source file. This kills useability if you don't have a monster machine. Setting it up so that it only builds when you tell it too helps a ton.

brazzy · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Eclipse takes 20 seconds to get going, and then freezes every few minutes for no apparently reason.
Visual Studio 2005 never makes me wait to autocomplete with IntelliSense. Eclipse, on the other hand, occasionally makes me wait a few minutes before displaying the autocomplete and then instantly hiding it because it timed out since it took so long to load.

Whatever it is, that is not normal for eclipse. Is the CPU at 100% load during those freezes? If so, the fault might lie with a virus scanner doing an on-access scan of the entire JDK source archive when eclipse accesses it to provice API documentation with the autocompletion.

If the CPU is idle, then it's obviously not Java being slow, but maybe the same problem that has recently been popping up in my workplace after everyone got new notebooks. Starting eclipse with the -clean option once seems to fix the problem for some people.

Volmarias · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Volmarias:
Startup times for Eclipse on my machine are comparable to startup times for VS 2005, and intellitext lookup delay is acceptable (500ms at worst, usually).
You're joking, right? You've got to be joking.
Visual Studio 2005 starts up instantly on my machine. No wait. It just starts.

Eclipse takes 20 seconds to get going, and then freezes every few minutes for no apparently reason.

Visual Studio 2005 never makes me wait to autocomplete with IntelliSense. Eclipse, on the other hand, occasionally makes me wait a few minutes before displaying the autocomplete and then instantly hiding it because it timed out since it took so long to load.

There's a pretty stark difference in speed between Visual Studio 2005 and Eclipse. Which may be because Eclipse takes almost triple the memory, according to the Task Manager.

Which is why I said "There is seriously something wrong with your setup" and just about everyone else is agreeing with me. It sounds like you're wasting a LOT of productivity because something is not working somewhere, and I'd suggest you take a few hours and troubleshoot WHY eclipse is running slower, instead of just complaining about it running slowly. Go get on freenode and ask in #eclipse or something.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
Which is why I said "There is seriously something wrong with your setup" and just about everyone else is agreeing with me. It sounds like you're wasting a LOT of productivity because something is not working somewhere, and I'd suggest you take a few hours and troubleshoot WHY eclipse is running slower, instead of just complaining about it running slowly. Go get on freenode and ask in #eclipse or something.

The only thing "wrong" with my setup is that I have to use Java.

Everything else works fine. Java is just slow, period.

The only applications that experience unreasonable slowdowns, random stops, and excessive memory usage requiring massive chunks to be swapped out are Java programs.

The problem is Java, pure and simple. There's nothing wrong with my setup.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

GF:
Anon:
gabba:
So now you can understand why Sun is sitting on a mountain of cash despite essentially having no product. Well, except for Java. Well, so really no product.
Sadly, no. Most new non-Apple, non-Verizon cellphones contain a useless J2ME implementation, which you do pay Sun for.
So just like people complain about the "Microsoft tax" when buying new PCs, new cellphones get dinged the "Sun tax" to allow you to run crappy mini-Java applications that no one in their right mind would ever use.

Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...
Welcome to the 2000s. Have you even tried any java apps in the last five years, or are you just running off at the mouth based on a bad experience from a decade ago? All blackberry apps are Java (including the google maps implementation which gives real-time GPS-based positioning). The only performance issues I ever see are in poorly coded specific applications. As for the desktop - take a look at Netbeans, or Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernable speed difference from native .

Lol, Eclipse is one of the slowest IDEs I've ever used. Ever.

Friend of mine did some tests of various languages (recently, as in within this last year), C++, C#, Python, Java to see what the perfomance of each was on a standard task.

I'll have to ask him for the exact test he used, since I can't remember what it was, but I remember the results.

The fastest was C++ followed VERY closely by C#, then, surprisingly, python, followed by a distant java.

Yeah, Java is slow.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

vman:
Friend of mine did some tests of various languages (recently, as in within this last year), C++, C#, Python, Java to see what the perfomance of each was on a standard task.
I'll have to ask him for the exact test he used, since I can't remember what it was, but I remember the results.

The fastest was C++ followed VERY closely by C#, then, surprisingly, python, followed by a distant java.

Yeah, Java is slow.

While I am not really surprised by those results overall (though I would expect Java to be faster than that), you have to be careful with benchmarks. It's super easy to create a benchmark where C++ is way slower than C#, Java, Perl, VBS, super-slow-interpreted-language-du-jour. It all depends on how the code was written and who is doing the benchmarking.

I recently did some benchmarking with C++ vs D. I'm good with C++ but I don't know D very well. The D code was over 100x slower than the C++ code. I don't believe that D is that much slower, I think it had more to do with the fact that I'm a major D newbie.

Anyway, benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

vman:
GF:
Anon:
gabba:
So now you can understand why Sun is sitting on a mountain of cash despite essentially having no product. Well, except for Java. Well, so really no product.
Sadly, no. Most new non-Apple, non-Verizon cellphones contain a useless J2ME implementation, which you do pay Sun for.
So just like people complain about the "Microsoft tax" when buying new PCs, new cellphones get dinged the "Sun tax" to allow you to run crappy mini-Java applications that no one in their right mind would ever use.

Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...
Welcome to the 2000s. Have you even tried any java apps in the last five years, or are you just running off at the mouth based on a bad experience from a decade ago? All blackberry apps are Java (including the google maps implementation which gives real-time GPS-based positioning). The only performance issues I ever see are in poorly coded specific applications. As for the desktop - take a look at Netbeans, or Eclipse -- tools that are unmatched for capability, written in Java, with no discernable speed difference from native .

Lol, Eclipse is one of the slowest IDEs I've ever used. Ever.

Friend of mine did some tests of various languages (recently, as in within this last year), C++, C#, Python, Java to see what the perfomance of each was on a standard task.

I'll have to ask him for the exact test he used, since I can't remember what it was, but I remember the results.

The fastest was C++ followed VERY closely by C#, then, surprisingly, python, followed by a distant java.

Yeah, Java is slow.

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4sandbox/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=javaclient&lang2=python

heh. yeah. you're probably right, champ.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

The only thing "wrong" with my setup is that I have to use Java.
Everything else works fine. Java is just slow, period.

The only applications that experience unreasonable slowdowns, random stops, and excessive memory usage requiring massive chunks to be swapped out are Java programs.

No, something IS wrong with your config. You can stick your fingers in your ears all you want, but you have multiple people telling you "something is configured incorrectly - there are thousands of people who don't have your issue"

You remind me of a coworker. He was ranting yesterday how the IDE and source control system suck, how this other tool is better, etc. We peeked over his shoulder. Yup, self-inflicted. "Well, its the fault of the tool!"

Dude, if you use a hammer and hit yourself on the thumb, its not the hammer's fault.

pitchingchris · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

powerlord:
I'll admit, my 2.4GHz, 1MB RAM machine is starting to age now, but VS2005 takes 5 seconds to bring up the Start page the first time I load it.

I hope you had more RAM than that. I'm surprised you ran the OS. Did you mean 1 GB ?

NaN · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

heck:
The only thing "wrong" with my setup is that I have to use Java.
Everything else works fine. Java is just slow, period.

The only applications that experience unreasonable slowdowns, random stops, and excessive memory usage requiring massive chunks to be swapped out are Java programs.

No, something IS wrong with your config. You can stick your fingers in your ears all you want, but you have multiple people telling you "something is configured incorrectly - there are thousands of people who don't have your issue"

You remind me of a coworker. He was ranting yesterday how the IDE and source control system suck, how this other tool is better, etc. We peeked over his shoulder. Yup, self-inflicted. "Well, its the fault of the tool!"

Dude, if you use a hammer and hit yourself on the thumb, its not the hammer's fault.

The instructions said to hit the nail. Clearly a documentation fault.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
aaawww:
Anon:
Imagine the speed of a Java desktop application, shrunk down and running on a cellphone...

well, me thinks that some while ago the myth of slowness of java desktop applications was debunked...

otho, i like to play the midp dweller roguelike
When's the last time you used a Java desktop application? I use one daily, it's based on Eclipse, so any of the "it's just Swing" arguments can be chucked out the window because Eclipse uses SWT which actually uses native widgets.

It's the slowest freaking thing I've ever used and it's even more hungry for memory than Firefox loading an AJAX web application. Once it finally gets loaded and running, it's fast enough for typing text.

But every couple of minutes - FREEZE! It just stops. Best guess is that this is the Java garbage collector freezing the entire application for 10 seconds.

Whenever it needs to load something (for example, to autocomplete some text) - FREEZE! The entire application stops for 10-20 seconds.

Try and do anything more complicated than text editing, and you're in for even more slowdowns.

So, no, Java being slow on the desktop is NOT A MYTH. If you've ever used a Java desktop application recently, you'd know that.

First thing dont let the autocompletion read the javadoc from suns web server than it wont frezze. I heard somewhere that updating software is a good practice... you could try it. Just to give an example i used eclipse on a 700 mhz machine with 512 mb and could without any bigger problems develop a fully fledged RCP application. Ok that time i also encountered those gc frezzes but looking at the size of eclipse and features that it offers there is really no reason blaming java for slownes. Tryed visual studio 2005? Its just as slow as eclipse only that it offers half of the nice tools that eclipse gives you.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Southern:
I wonder if I can run doom in one of those

They made great seti@home machines, at least until they were burned in & had to go into production doing real work.

Volmarias · 2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
Volmarias:
Which is why I said "There is seriously something wrong with your setup" and just about everyone else is agreeing with me. It sounds like you're wasting a LOT of productivity because something is not working somewhere, and I'd suggest you take a few hours and troubleshoot WHY eclipse is running slower, instead of just complaining about it running slowly. Go get on freenode and ask in #eclipse or something.
The only thing "wrong" with my setup is that I have to use Java.
Everything else works fine. Java is just slow, period.

The only applications that experience unreasonable slowdowns, random stops, and excessive memory usage requiring massive chunks to be swapped out are Java programs.

The problem is Java, pure and simple. There's nothing wrong with my setup.

Well, everything just works fine on my setup. INCLUDING Java. Java is NOT "just slow, period." You're being unreasonable, there is something wrong with your setup, and you're refusing to admit the possibility, instead insisting "JAVA IS SLOW SO THATS WHY JAVA IS SLOW!!!!!!" and sticking your fingers in your ears.

But, hey, it's up to you if you want to continue to struggle and curse and bitch and moan instead of actually having a productive setup. I'm just pointing out that you're having a uniquely poor experience, while the rest of the worst has reasonably fast experiences, and you feel that you are not the exception, but the rule.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

for example, my T-Mobile RAZR takes longer to access my contacts than my 8 year old Nokia shitbox did, despite not changing the number of contacts

Are you sure it's not just that RAZRs are bad phones? Motorola should stick to what they're got at, and leave the mobile phones to the professionals. Er... What are Motorola good at?

Regarding Eclipse: I tried using it for a while, got sick of it being slower than a lame tortoise, and went back to Xcode.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Way, way back, I worked on a very costly system; just as we were finishing, they realized it wasn't performing anywhere near spec. A quick calculation showed that given the cost of development and the reduced number of people it could actually support, it was going to take somewhere around twenty to thirty years to pay off. It hadn't quite been released, when it was declared legacy. Opps.

Paul. http://theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.com

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Volmarias:
Well, everything just works fine on my setup. INCLUDING Java. Java is NOT "just slow, period." You're being unreasonable, there is something wrong with your setup, and you're refusing to admit the possibility, instead insisting "JAVA IS SLOW SO THATS WHY JAVA IS SLOW!!!!!!" and sticking your fingers in your ears.

Fine, genius. Explain what on earth could be causing Java programs and only Java programs to run like absolute crap on my machine.

Suggest something I can change that would magically make Java run faster than it already does.

I'm already using the latest version of Java (1.6.0_05) and the latest stable release of Eclipse (3.3.2).

What would you suggest I change? Keep in mind that all software that is not Java works perfectly.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Main reason why java runs slow for some people is that there are not objective.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Anon:
The problem is Java, pure and simple. There's nothing wrong with my setup.

Apart from being memory-starved, that is.

If Java's got enough memory, it's very fast. But Java's definitely very hungry for memory; when I run Eclipse on a 512MB machine it swaps a lot and is slow, but on a 1GB machine (admittedly also faster) it's very quick. This was with a substantial number of plugins. (What can I say? I develop lots of stuff in different languages, so IDEs that just support one or two suck for me. YMMV.)

The other problem you may be experiencing is that not all versions of Java are as fast; Java6 has definitely proved a bit faster than Java5 (and that beat the previous versions). That's not exactly remarkable in any other language...

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Gabba said: And that image is the reason we're stuck using crappy x86-based PC's instead of the RISC-based PPC archs or others that are much more efficient than the aging x86

That would be why Apple dumped the PPC that IBM couldn't keep up to competitive performance, in an expensive gamble to switch to Intel?

Remember that "cheaper for X amount of work" is "more efficient".

That and the Intel chips have been RISC inside since the Pentium Pro back in late 1995.

So I guess they're crappy and less efficient than RISC because they've been RISC internally for over 12 years now? Do you expect us to believe that microcode translation of x86 instruction is that expensive?

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

yEAH rIGHT:
...and if you go to www.e10k.net, you can buy one of them at kentucky steakhouse !

Probably using it to charbroil the steaks.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Who still uses 512MB of RAM? Even 1GB is puny. RAM is so damn cheap nowadays even homeless people have 2GB of RAM.

2008-03-27 Reply Admin

Spending millions on a system with zero-profit!

Brilliant!

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