IBM Releases Fastest SDK For Java 6

IndioMan writes "IBM is releasing an SDK for Java 6 and is sponsoring an Early Release Program to gather feedback from the Java community. Product binaries and documentation are available for Linux on x86 and 64-bit AMD, and AIX for PPC for 32- and 64-bit systems. In addition to supporting the Java SE 6 Platform specification, IBM's SDK also focuses on platform stability, performance, and diagnostics. It's tops on every benchmark."

x86_64 plugin = Heros

[baptiste (256004)]

If they include a x86_64 browser plugin they'll be heros. It's 2007 and Sun still refuses to release a 64-bit browser JRE plugin because..... why?

Re:x86_64 plugin = Heros

[bcrowell (177657)]

By March, 100% of Java will be available under GPL, right? So at that point, I would think that anybody who has the skills and time will be able to clean up any code that's not 64-bit clean, and compile a 64-bit browser plugin. I'm looking forward to seeing some really good things happen in OSS with Java, now that all the licensing impediments are going away.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

Personally, I understand why 64 bit isn't necessarily supported, but then, they support Linux and AIX on 64 bit PPC. I don't know if the 64 bit on PPC is because they've had it working for longer, because of its POWER heritage or just because it's their architecture. I also wonder if there is something about the x86 implementation that makes porting to 64 bit pretty hard.

With respect to the browser plug-in, I don't really know that many people that are running 64 bit computers, using 64 bit aware operatin

Re:

[bwt (68845)]

I don't really know that many people that are running 64 bit computers, using 64 bit aware operating systems and 64 bit software./i>

I do, except I run a 32-bit firefox that I install by hand because I need a java plugin that works. You have to remove the barriers before people will use it, and once you do remove the barriers, they will come.

Re:x86_64 plugin = Heros

[this great guy (922511)]

There are 2 ways to get a 32-bit Java plugin running under a Linux/AMD64 environment (BTW, AMD64 is the official arch name implemented by AMD and Intel, x86-64 has been officially abandonned):

• Use the Blackdown Java plugin, they provide a 64-bit version (it works ok, but I have come across at least 1 applet able to crash it).
• Use nspluginwrapper [beauchesne.info] that allows you to load 32-bit plugins in 64-bit browsers.

Of course, since Sun has open sourced Java, a 64-bit Java plugin is likely to appear soon.

Re:x86_64 plugin = Heros

[by Anonymous Coward]

maybe because the JIT compiler has to convert the java instructions to x86-64 instructions, so it's not just a simple recompile.

Right, because that's so different when it's running under a browser than under the standalone VM that ALREADY EXISTS FOR X86-64.

What benchmarks?

[by Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice to see a few links uphold that claim.

Not all benchmarks better

[greg_barton (5551)]

Scimark [nist.gov] wasn't even close:

IBM java6:
Composite Score: 482.8282568762099
FFT (1024): 551.8002634079949
SOR (100x100): 568.7588552216857
Monte Carlo : 64.62096017621073
Sparse matmult (N=1000, nz=5000): 219.84569330460474
LU (100x100): 1009.1155122705532

Sun java6:
Composite Score: 617.5119705454583
FFT (1024): 510.7586118547276
SOR (100x100): 829.8686416193439
Monte Carlo : 118.25350583943022
Sparse matmult (N=1000, nz=5000): 470.6355733620428
LU (100x100): 1158.0435200517468

Higher scores are better. Both run on AMD X2 5000+

Sun VM stomped on IBM's. That wasn't true with earlier VM's. IBM used to smoke Sun on scimark. Maybe there's more development to be done.

Where are the sources ?

[mritunjai (518932)]

SUN has released the sources to it's compiler and JDK.

IBM where are thou the benefactor and promoter of Open Source ? Show us the GPL sources to your JDK and compiler!

Re:Open Java?

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

Sun didn't want to delay the launch of Java 6, so it's Java 7 that's open source.

Re:Open Java?

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

I forgot to include my sources for that:
Behind the scenes [sun.com] -- from Mark Reinholds Blog.

Re:Open Java?

[rdean400 (322321)]

That's not true. The source code has already been opened as a project:

https://jdk.dev.java.net/ [java.net]

The fact that they haven't made their first release from that product changes nothing.

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Funny, but even Sun's JDK blows Perl out of the water.

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[Yosho (135835)]

Why did the parent modded as troll? It's quite true. For example, look at The Computer Language Shootout [debian.org]. Sun's JVM is much faster than Perl in almost every benchmark except for startup times. Perl's memory consumption is somewhere better, but not even close to the same degree that Java is faster.

Those benchmarks are based on Java 1.5, too. 1.6 is even faster.

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[Tim C (15259)]

Why did the parent modded as troll?

Because this is slashdot, and perl is one of the Chosen Few Languages, along with C, Ruby, Python and PHP. Java, being both closed (for the moment) and slow (5 years ago on the client side) is not. Therefore, any statement that compares Java favourably with one of the Few Chosen Languages must be either a troll or flamebait.

It's easier when you stop fighting the groupthink.

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[kv9 (697238)]

Because this is slashdot, and perl is one of the Chosen Few Languages, along with C, Ruby, Python and PHP. Java, being both closed (for the moment) and slow (5 years ago on the client side) is not.

I believe you mean "Chosen-Few-Languages-for-Slamming". they all get it from the slashcrowd, in no particular order:

• Java - slow, bloaty

• C - old and krusty, pointers baaaad, get with the times

• Ruby - it's the new Visual Basic

• Python - haha whitespace

• PHP - insecure, noobs

• Perl - gruesome syntax and readability

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[thule (9041)]

I know the statement was tagged as funny, but Java is quite fast these days. Java7 will only get faster with some really spiffy JVM ideas. I don't see Python, Perl, and Ruby catching up for a while.

It seems to me that once Java is opened up and is included with every Linux distro out there, Java will not be perceived as large and slow anymore. It will be a simple apt-get, yum, etc away. It will just work.

Re:

[jrumney (197329)]

Are your "write once, run anywhere" applications using internal APIs, or are they relying on bugs in the 1.3 class libraries to run? Personally I've only ever come across code that DOESN'T run properly on 1.3, due to bugs introduced between 1.2 and 1.3, and fixed in 1.4.

Re:The Fastest JDK?

[Decaff (42676)]

In the meanwhile, we've still got customers stuck on 1.3, because our "write once, run anywhere" code doesn't run on 1.4, and it's too much effort to puzzle out why because Sun's runtime is just such a mess.

There could be several reasons why Java 1.3 code won't run on 1.4. One is if you use sun.* or com.sun.* packages directly, which is funcamentally against portability guidelines. Another could be real incompatibilities. There are very few incompatibilities between 1.3 and 1.4. They are listed here:
http://java.sun.com/javase/compatibility_j2se1.4.h tml [sun.com]

If you keeping customers from using Java 5.0 or Java 6.0 because you can't sort this out, you are keeping them from major performance and functional improvements.

Re:

[angel'o'sphere (80593)]

we've still got customers stuck on 1.3, because our "write once, run anywhere" code doesn't run on 1.4, and it's too much effort to puzzle out why

Sorry, but I don't believe that. You probably have problems to run 1.4 java on a 1.3 VM ... that can be tweeked however by forcing the 1.4 compiler to generate 1.3 compatible byte code.

1.3 byte code must by definition run on a 1.4 machine, and if there is indeed a problem in the class libraries a simple look at the exception trace should show you where. Even if

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't been funny or true for a long time...

I think you're wrong. Even today, over 15 years since Java was first announced, we see little use of it for client-side development. There are only a handful of consumer-grade applications written in Java, with the most popular being Azureus and RSSOwl. Even then, one of the chief complaints against them is their lack of responsiveness and their excessive memory consumption. And keep in mind that they use SWT for their GUIs, which is in fact far lighter and more r

Re:

[Time_Ngler (564671)]

Client side, that is true. Server side, its just as fast or sometimes faster. See http://kano.net/javabench/ [kano.net] and http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?articl e_id=153 [aceshardware.com]

Re:

[badfish99 (826052)]

It's certainly possible for Java code to run fast, once it's been through the just-in-time compiler, i.e. once it has been compiled to native code. That would surely be true for any language. But that means that you have to load up the whole of the compiler into memory in order to run your program. This is fine on a server, so long as you don't care about the cost of memory. It's a disaster on a client machine.

Re:

[try_anything (880404)]

If you work on commercial software, the type of license may determine whether you can use the code in your product.

Re:Does this mean a faster Eclipse?

[owlstead (636356)]

The slow performance of Eclipse is not due to the JVM, it's about the SWT library and it's bindings with the native libraries. There was an SWT port called SWT Fox [sourceforge.net] that quickened things up a bit. It doesn't seem to be maintained anymore, but the performance speedup was very noticable. Changing the VM probably won't make the slightest of difference.

That cost me two moderations. Why aren't moderations in a discussion depended on the *branch* of the discussion? Oh well...