[znpy]

I still hear the "java slow" meme from time to time... Memes are slow to die, sadly. Some people just won't catch on with the fact that java has had just-in-time compilation for like 15 years now (it was one of the first major platforms to get that), has had a fully concurrent garbage collector for a number of releases (zgc since java 11) and can be slimmed down a lot (jlink).

I work on low-latency stuff and we routinely get server-side latencies in the order of single to low double-digit microseconds of latency.

If python ever becomes fully concurrent (python threads being free of any kind of GIL) we'll see the "python slow" meme for a number of years... Also doesn't help that python gets updated very very slowly in the industry (although things are getting better).

[PhilipRoman]

I think java being slow has less to do with the implementation (which is pretty good) and more to do with the culture of overengineering (including in the standard library). Everything creates objects (which the JIT cannot fully eliminate, escape analysis is not magic), cache usage is abysmal. Framework writers do their best to defeat the compiler by abusing reflection. And all these abstractions are far from zero cost, which is why even the JDK has to have hardcoded special cases for Streams of primitives and ByteBuffers.

Of course, if you have a simple fastpath you can make it fast in any language with a JIT, latency is also generally not an issue anymore, credit where credit is due - java GCs are light years ahead of everything else.

Regarding jlink - my main complaint is that everything requires java.base which already is 175M. And thats not counting the VM, etc. But I don't actively work with java anymore so please correct me if there is a way to get smaller images.

[RyEgswuCsn]

I feel Java deserves better. When Python finally gets true thread concurrency, JIT (mamba and the like), comprehensive static analysis (type hints), and some sophisticated GC, and better performance, people will realise Java have had them all this time.

[thorncorona]

GraalVM is a pretty magical tool