The empire strikes back…. or does it?

I still chuckle from the completely non-scientific way of benchmarking Java versus Python in a previous posting. Anyway, to further rub salt into the wounds we can have a look at the results from the Debian language shootout .   Maybe I should just present the results without commentary …. nah where would be the fun in that

The graph is indicating that yes, java outperforms python in just about all of the benchmarks.  Sure the memory usage of the java application is higher and I concede that that is one of the major drawbacks of the java platform.  If the bug discussed in this prior post was actually fixed then there would be little to whinge about – but i’m sure people would find something, because people love whinging, me included 

Interestingly here are the results of a Java versus Perl comparison as well.

What! Java is faster than perl, how can this be ! /me removes tongue from cheek.

And for those who still tell me that php is faster than Java…. well let’s see….

Oh dear, poor php.

This sort of data all ways makes me chuckle.  The only bit that makes me uncomfortable is that I didn’t run the tests myself and I haven’t looked at the code contained in the benchmarks.   This is something that I want to do agains the openjdk code base as i’m doing research on the hotspot compiler and this code provides for an interesting test bed.

The 20 cent summary is if you think Python is faster than Java then you really need to have a look at the data.  If you want Python to be faster than Java then analyze the code, explore the Python code base and see if you can make it better – take that as a challenge as everyone benefits from the results.

Yes, I use Python as well as Perl and Java, make them all quicker – see if I care