Task Scheduling

[Michael Torrie]

Thanks for this post, Levi.  This is one of the most insightful comments
I've seen in quite a long time.  Because I really learned something
better about some of the cool technologies in the Java virtual machine,
and also more about these so-called dynamic languages.

Michael

On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 16:44 -0700, Levi Pearson wrote:

> I don't think Java is a bad language, overall.  It's got a lot of  
> industry support and a lot of programmers who know it.  Sometimes  
> it's the best tool, sometimes not.  But it ain't the be-all of  
> programming languages, and I have some arguments against some of your  
> points.
> 
> On Jan 25, 2006, at 3:23 PM, Bryan Sant wrote:
> >
> > This is only true if you're restricted to use vim or emacs.  If all
> > you have is a text editor, then a verbose, typesafe language like Java
> > is a hindrance.  If you use an IDE such as Eclipse or NetBeans, your
> > productivity with Java and these tools far outstrips that of dynamic
> > languages.  I hardly type at all, the IDE does all the work for me.
> >
> 
> There's more to dynamic typing than simply not having to type out  
> type annotations.  Consider the Gang of Four's book on Design  
> Patterns.  Quite a few of them are completely unnecessary in a  
> dynamically-typed language.  They're ways to produce dynamic,  
> flexible systems in a static language.  An IDE won't be able to work  
> Design Patterns into your programs like it can automatically enter  
> type annotations.
> 
> I submit that productivity is not so based so much on the amount of  
> typing that must be done as it is on the amount of conceptual work  
> that must be done.  When building dynamic, flexible software systems,  
> dynamically-typed languages can require a lot less conceptual work,  
> as evidenced by the lack of need for several common design patterns  
> that are necessary in statically-typed languages.
> 
> > Additionally, dynamic languages have always hit a major wall when
> > dealing with larger projects.  As long as your project is trivially
> > small, or very well suited to the original problem domain of that
> > language, you're better off with a stricter, type-safe language.
> >
> 
> This is often trotted out by proponents of static typing, but I don't  
> know if there's any hard evidence.  Certainly static typing brings  
> some benefits, but it has some costs as well.  I believe dynamic  
> languages suit large projects quite well, and as evidence I can point  
> to a number of large systems built in Lisp and Smalltalk, which were  
> developed and marketed as systems languages long before the term  
> 'scripting language' was coined.
> 
> >> - Runtime performance goes up
> >
> > Completely incorrect.  Java is significantly faster than any dynamic
> > language.  It is nearly as fast as C/C++.  Get your facts straight.
> > Run some of your own benchmark tests if you must.
> >
> 
> Java has a very mature implementation with lots of cool technology in  
> its virtual machine.  The fact is, though, that dynamic behavior has  
> run-time cost due to extra layers of indirection.  Although types are  
> established at compile time, so they don't need to be checked at run- 
> time, method dispatch is still performed at run-time.  This  
> dynamicity is what slows Java down relative to C, for example, when   
> coding object-oriented programs.  Java's advanced implementation  
> technology is what speeds this up and makes it competitive, not its  
> static typing.
> 
> If you're going to benchmark language implementations (one language  
> is not faster than another, but one language implementation may be  
> faster than another one) then you have to decide what you're going to  
> benchmark.  A 'dynamic' language has a lot of features that make it  
> easier to program dynamic, flexible software.  You can also program  
> dynamic, flexible software in statically-typed languages (witness  
> Design Patterns), but there's a conceptual overhead that the  
> programmer must pay, namely how to work dynamicity into a static  
> language.  The extra levels of indirection required to implement  
> dynamicity in 'static' languages produce a similar run time cost to  
> the dynamic features in the 'dynamic' languages.  So, benchmarks must  
> be carefully chosen to reflect what /you/ intend to do with the  
> language implementations you're considering.
> 
> By the way, a lot of the technology behind Java's virtual machine  
> comes from an extremely dynamic language called Self that was  
> developed by some Sun researchers.  It's based on Smalltalk, and  
> requires the advanced virtual machine to have reasonable performance  
> at all.  But the technology does exist, so it is a surprisingly fast  
> language implementation.
> 
> 
> 		--Levi
> 
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