[simiones]

> Also vector is a weird point to make, it's been some time I had to deal with Java (luckily) but arrays there are also linear AFAIK. And there are GCs that have a bump allocator for new objects (not sure if Java fits here), so cache would benefit more than in sparse malloc allocations in C/C++.

I think the point is that Object[] in Java is a linear block of pointers to objects, whereas vector<Object> in C++ is a linear block of the objects themselves.

[nicbn]

Fair enough. But it is needed to point out that there's a catch in that in order to use dynamic dispatch (subclasses, interfaces, ...) you'd still need to use pointers in C++.

Deep down the problem could be rephrased as "there are no structs in Java". In C# for example you could have a vector of structs and enjoy linear memory access.

[simiones]

That's true. It's also important to note that this feature of C++ actually breaks encapsulation - the size of an object, including all of its private fields, private parent classes etc, is part of the public interface of the object in C++. So whenever you add a new private field to an object, you need to recompile all uses of your class, even if your class is used through a DLL.