[Dark Goob]

aaarrrghhh

Why is Java soooo slllooooooowwwwwwww on MacOS X? It's *INSANE*. I compile a simple Game of Life program on my 550 MHz G4 TiBook running 10.2.1 with a 16 MB Radeon card, and the program runs about 10x slower than the same exact thing running on a 250 MHz Celeron Windows 95 machine!!! What gives? Why the heck is Java sooooo increeeedddddidbbbbbllly slow on OS X? And more importantly, WHEN and IF will apple ever fix this atrocity?! It runs better in emulation on Classic! Yack!

-=DG=-

[dogwood]

Java is slower in OSX, then on Windows and Classic that is true for now, but for reasons. However, this is not Apples fault, nor really anyones else's fault.

Java is not innately SLOW, the problem with Java is the Java Interface aka AWT/Swing. That is why Java rules on the server and the command line, Sun is working on making it better, but this will take time. I think there are some draft proposal floating around like, loading AWT/Swing components on system start up, and making them just like other system interface items, that can be shared between Java applications. There is also an XML based open source alternative for Java interfaces.

Their is allot of action going on under the hood, with Java on OSX. The JVM for Mac OSX 1.3.x is written in carbon. This is the main reason why 1.4 is so slow to come to OSX. As Apple is currently redoing the OSX JVM in Objective-c. (Got this bit of info from a Apple Java Evangelist) Because a carbon based JVM has reached its limits. By moving to objective-c framework for the JVM Apple hope to solve many of the problems like speed in the JVM and in Java in general.

In short people need to just deal with it for now. Remember support for Java on OSX is the best per noon. No other OS developer gives as much priority to Java on their platform as Apple gives. OSX is the only platform that ships with a JVM by default. Soon Apple will be shipping JVM 1.4 and one day Java will reach Java 3, and with MS .Net now here, we can see Java getting even stronger, to keep ahead of the game. Also the number of developers now taking the Mac serous because of Apple great support for Java is making our platform of choice far more attractive to those who really matter in the computer game. aka developers.

[absmiths]

You need to clarify your problem. Java server apps and command line apps are very fast - it is the UI which is slow (never heard that complaint before about OS X).

And no, I didn't vote in your poll - there is only one option worded four different ways.

[Dark Goob]

Thanks, Dunc, for that sweet response. I'd suspected it was one of these legacy issues that hopefully will be erased as things become fully Cocoa around here.

How much trouble is involved in porting an app from Swing or AWT to being a fully object-oriented Cocoa Java app? If you don't know any of the Cocoa classes? It's probbly a beotch, huh?

I love OS X but it's painful to have to be running my Java applets in Classic and watch them go five times faster.

-=DG=-

[amonitzer]

Originally posted by Dark Goob:
How much trouble is involved in porting an app from Swing or AWT to being a fully object-oriented Cocoa Java app? If you don't know any of the Cocoa classes? It's probbly a beotch, huh?

It's like a rewrite. When you're lucky you can keep the app logic though.

[Dark Goob]

Its a "game of life" Java applet ... running AWT ... it runs fine in OS 9. But in OS X IT BLOWS HARD SCHLONG!

Whew. Hopefully they fix this in OS XI or whatever it's gonna be called.

-=DG=-