Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: What do people use Java for?

Author:Chuck Shotton
Posted:2/23/1999; 11:50:08 AM
Topic:What do people use Java for?
Msg #:3173 (In response to 3157)
Prev/Next:3172 / 3174

I've got a lot of respect for you and the work you've done, but I've got to disagree. Java on the server is a Good Thing.

Well, I have to admit that I put myself in the crosshairs this morning, based mostly on a phone call last night. We were discussing whether or not to leave large portions of our existing Java implementation of Gossip intact or recode it in C. There were 2 primary arguments that argued for recoding, the runtime memory footprint of Java and the inconsistency of Java implementations and installations.

Java is resource intensive, no matter how you slice it. While JITs help improve the CPU price for running byte code, the runtime overhead of Java is definitely significant. Garbage collecting, UI threads, type and constraint checking, and all sorts of other logic unrelated to your application does take its toll. But you'll notice that my two arguments against Java above are essentially non-issues on the server side, where you can easily control the Java installation and likely have an excess of RAM.

For fixed functions like discussion boards, web counters, and low-volume database engines, you can make a compelling case for using Java. My point was that there are lots of Web services now that DO become CPU-bound. 2 or 3 years ago, hit counts were low enough that I/O saturation over low speed lines *was* the primary concern of server admins. But with hundreds of sites taking hits in the multi-million range daily, you have to start being concerned with the load placed on the back-end server processes.

So I guess I agree and disagree. Java has its place on the server side, maybe even moreso than on the client because of the UI inconsistencies. But using it in a high traffic Web application, or an application that has to be able to change dynamically, you may find that either native code or a script-based solution solves the problem better. Java's still not a panacea, as much as I like the language.



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