Fast Native Eclipse with GTK+ Looks

Mark Wielaard writes "The gcj team created a natively compiled build of the Eclipse IDE. The resulting binary starts up faster then with any traditional JVM since there is no virtual machine to initialize or slow byte code interpreter or just in time compiler involved. This means that gcj got a lot better since the last Slashdot story in December about gcj and Eclipse. Red Hat provides RPMs for easy installation. Footnotes has screenshots by Havoc Pennington of the Eclipse IDE with GTK+ widgets."

Comments

Re:Troll...Troll...Troll...

[gumpish]

And [Java] continues to be hyped, and is being used less and less, as the speed continues to hamper it.

Java is still some 40 times faster than Python. As hardware speed continues to obey Moore's law, performance per clock cycle becomes less important. (For many areas of computing anyway.)

Re:Plugins?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe run-time loading works. GCJ also includes a bytecode interpreter, so it will use that (it'll be slower than a normal JVM, but if you know you'll be loading it, you can compile the plugin natively, I think).

That was the case last time I looked at GCJ about a year ago. I ended up being unable to use it because of lack of windowing toolkit support. Anyone know the status on all that?

Re:load times

[khuber]

Java was never designed to start up quickly, though they did a lot of work on startup in 1.4.x. Startup time is slow due primarily to what is executed, not the JVM speed.

I wrote a simple JVMPI method tracer. It's mind-blowing what all happens before your code is actually run. Here's a method trace I just ran with 1.4.2 for a simple program.

-Kevin

Re:Startup sure, but how fast does it run?

[red_gnom]

Of course, I don't see myself as a "Java programmer" or a "carpenter" or a "brick layer". I wouldn't take any pride in that. I have a degree in computer science...

...Because of the size and footprint issues, you can't do embedded with Java.

To further extend your knowledge in computer science, look into the Internet tool called "Google". Using it can save you from ridiculing yourself by publicly posting uneducated statements:

Embedded Java

Re:Microsoft's IDEs? You have GOT to be kidding

[WhoDaresWins]

Using Microsoft's IDEs - I have VC++ both 6 and 7 - is like pounding nails with my fists. Have you used Metrowerks Codewarrior? Now there's an IDE. It's a joy to use.

While IDEs can be quite a personal preference thing, you don't quite mention anything specifically about what is so good about the Metrowerks IDE other than it being cross platform and easy to author web pages in(!). I mean come on neither of those are core IDE functionality. I would have given you more credit if you had any pointed things to say about how the Metrowerks IDE is better but as it stands now you aren't very convincing.

If you prefer makefiles, there are command line tools that provide the same compiler.

Huh? This is not a big deal. Almost every compiler in the world can do this including VC++.

Visual C++ can't compile it because of its poor compliance to the standard.

Its quite obvious that you haven't tried VC++ 7.1 (Visual Studio.Net 2003). Its has close to 95% plus ISO C++ compliance. The only major feature missing is "export" which has now been almost officially labelled as a misfeature by the C++ gurus on the standards comittee and no major compiler will implement it. You mentioned having VC++ 6 and 7 and yet you being totally unaware of the fact the most VC++ programmers were long aware that VC++ 7.1 would have close to full compliance, leads me to think that you aren't much a VC++ user and perhaps only use it because you have to.

GCJ performance is a myth. Benchmarks inside.

[lokedhs]

In general, GCJ compiled code is slower than the smae code running in the JVM. The only speed advantage comes from the startup times.

Often the JVM will out-perform GCJ with a factor of 3. Check out the numbers on this page.

I fail to see why people want to run a GCJ compiled evrsion of a development tool and run at at one third of the speed of the JVM, just in order to save a few seconds of startup time.

Re:GCJ performance is a myth. Benchmarks inside.

[Tom7]

I checked out the numbers, but GCJ seems to be just barely edged out by Hotspot in most cases. Considering that GCJ is free and allows you to distribute native binaries, that's pretty good.

They don't have figures for memory usage, installation profile, etc., and I bet in those areas GCJ beats Hotspot for end-users. And you can't beat an install with no library dependencies.

Re:Memory Usage vs Eclipse Running in JVM

[thimo]

A quick test (using an Eclipse 2.1.1 from eclipse.org):

Eclipse 2.1.1 with JVM
- Second start: 13 seconds
- Memory Eclipse: 80 MB
- Memory JVM: 65 MB

Eclipse 2.0.1 without JVM
- Second start: 9 seconds
- Memory: 96 MB

The download page seems to indicate you're downloading an Eclipse 2.1.0 version, but the about dialog says 2.0.1. Which one is it?

Cheers,

Thimo (back to coding in Eclipse 2.1.1 :)

Re:Why JVM?

[the eric conspiracy]

Dynamicity? No. Java is a aggressively static language.

Static types perhaps, but very dynamic when it comes to linking. Java has a lot of support for things like dynamic class loaders that lead to a very nice plug-in architecture, and extreme flexibility when it comes to deployment of code updates to a running application. Not to mention fun with diddling bytecodes on the fly.

Fast. Was:Startup sure, but how fast does it run?

[atgreen]

Eclipse contains a java compiler which you can also compile as a standalone app with with gcj (see http://sources.redhat.com/rhug). The gcj-compiled compiler is almost three times faster than the latest IBM JRE run version.

Re:load times *do* matter in the real world (tm)

[ChannelX]

I still dont get why you need to restart Eclipse to go into another editor. Run them both at the same time. IIRC the Eclipse editor will detect the new file changes.