[jiggawatts]

> The real situation: a virtual method is called only a few hundred times and is barely visible in profiling tools.

The reality is that the entire Java ecosystem revolves around call stacks hundreds of calls deep where most (if not all) of those are virtual calls through an interface.

Even in web server scenarios where the user might be "5 milliseconds away", I've seen these overheads add up to the point where it is noticeable.

ASP.NET Core for example has been optimised recently to go the opposite route of not using complex nested call paths in the core of the system and has seen dramatic speedups.

For crying out loud, I've seen Java web servers requiring 100% CPU time across 16 cores for half an hour to start up! HALF AN HOUR!

[mda]

I bet that half an hour startup is not because of nested calls at all. I worked with a ton of Java code and if something is slow, it is usually shitty I/O related code or some algorithmic stupidity, not because of virtual calls and what not.