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Android Is a Dead End

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Re: Android Is a Dead End

#2
Seems to me the long standing "Java is slow" versus "that's an old wives tale, Java software can be as fast native" all converges right down to the evidence of Android - compared to iOS, it's slow. If Java was just as fast then this would never come up.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#4
post #2

Seems to me the long standing "Java is slow" versus "that's an old wives tale, Java software can be as fast native" all converges right down to the evidence of Android - compared to iOS, it's slow. If Java was just as fast then this would never come up.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud world, it's a -lot- of overhead. The same is true in smartphones...we have a huge memory use problem in Android. It may be 'performant', but it's still a resource dog.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#5
post #4
post #2

Seems to me the long standing "Java is slow" versus "that's an old wives tale, Java software can be as fast native" all converges right down to the evidence of Android - compared to iOS, it's slow. If Java was just as fast then this would never come up.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud…

> The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore.

Or, you can also say that the adoption of LLVM compilers, Javascript/Node, Python, and Ruby, show that people are more into VMs than ever.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#7
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud…

> The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. Or, you can also say that the adoption of LLVM compilers, Javascript/Node, Python, and Ruby, show that people are more into VMs than ever.

LLVM is not a vm, despite its name. Node is popular mainly because frontend people want to do backend work. Python is python, it's been around forever and is available. It's also unmatched in scientific realms. Ruby seems falling out of favor.

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#8
post #4
post #2

Seems to me the long standing "Java is slow" versus "that's an old wives tale, Java software can be as fast native" all converges right down to the evidence of Android - compared to iOS, it's slow. If Java was just as fast then this would never come up.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud…

> people just aren't that into VMs anymore

Bytecode can be translated quite well to native code. So I'm wondering if this isn't about "VMs versus native" as much as it is about "garbage collected versus unmanaged memory".

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#9
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud…

> The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. Or, you can also say that the adoption of LLVM compilers, Javascript/Node, Python, and Ruby, show that people are more into VMs than ever.

JavaScript is moving away from VMs in a sense, since WASM has basically unmanaged memory (no garbage collector). That's a good thing, because in theory you could build your own GC on top of it. (I say in theory because the technology is not there yet, in particular on the concurrency front).

Re: Android Is a Dead End

#10
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java can be performant, but still typically has a huge footprint and memory profile. Others will point out that there are multiple implementations of Java, which is true, but to what adoption? IMO, the only thing propping up Java is legacy enterprise and Android. The adoption of Go, Rust, et al show that people just aren't that into VMs anymore. They had a place in the self hosted world, but in the microservice/cloud…

> people just aren't that into VMs anymore Bytecode can be translated quite well to native code. So I'm wondering if this isn't about "VMs versus native" as much as it is about "garbage collected versus unmanaged memory".

Possibly. The default strategy, at least in the server side world, simply uses too much memory. Compare Go RES memory to an equally implemented Java version. It's typically orders of magnitude smaller.
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