Positronic Vibrations

Peter Knego wonders "Why Is Groovy So Slow?" and shows some evidence. I will admit I expected Groovy to be slower than Java because even though it does compile to Java byte codes. It has to perform various translations to satisfy the VM that expects a lot to be already typed. The Java VM is an ugly world for dynamic languages because of the early bind nature to gain performance. Some of his numbers were shocking. He also mentioned he was going to run numbers on jRuby as well. I'll be curious about that too. I'm expecting the numbers to tell a similar story.

But, that's not the point of this post. I'm worried with posts like the above because developers will use it as evidence that you shouldn't use dynamic languages. I never thought the arguments for not using dynamic languages would be played out again. Back in the 90's, it was Smalltalk vs. C/C++. I remember having many a debate how the productivity gains out weighed the small performance hit for late binding. I thought when Java won, I would never have to argue about performance ever again.

It's not that the above posts are bad. I think they are wonderful. It gives something that the Groovy guys can use to make their product better. And that's good for all of us wanting to be dynamic in a static world. But, those numbers will also be used to prove why you shouldn't use dynamic languages. And that's sad. It's all come full circle. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. The numbers are not bad because dynamic languages are slow, but because trying to get them run on an architecture not built with them in mind.

Labels: dynamic languages, groovy, java

posted by Blaine at 5:24 PM |  4 comments |  Post a Comment