Mono Developers Regret Doing Moonlight In C++

[Temar]

Why not use Java or .Net over C++? Even for AAA games? Faster development, less bugs. The performance intensive libs can still be in c/c++. But gaming code can be in Java and not loose 1% in performance in today multicore systems...

I read this quite often, still I haven't seen a Java game yet which actually runs fast. Just take a look at Minecraft, which is not even an AAA game and already runs dead slow. Maybe it is written very poorly, but the same is true for GUIs. Many people claim, it is possible to write fast and snappy GUIs in Java. Yet I have never seen a single Java application which has a GUI that is as fast and snappy as a C/C++ one.

I'm really not a Java hater, I'm quite indifferent towards Java. So if I'm wrong, please correct me and show some examples of properly done Java applications, because I have never seen one.

[GreatEmerald]

I read this quite often, still I haven't seen a Java game yet which actually runs fast. Just take a look at Minecraft, which is not even an AAA game and already runs dead slow. Maybe it is written very poorly, but the same is true for GUIs. Many people claim, it is possible to write fast and snappy GUIs in Java. Yet I have never seen a single Java application which has a GUI that is as fast and snappy as a C/C++ one.

I'm really not a Java hater, I'm quite indifferent towards Java. So if I'm wrong, please correct me and show some examples of properly done Java applications, because I have never seen one.

DOSBox Game Launcher (DBGL) comes to mind. I usually don't even notice it's a Java application.

[mrugiero]

DOSBox Game Launcher (DBGL) comes to mind. I usually don't even notice it's a Java application.

JDownloader was pretty responsive, AFAIR. Its only problem was the time it took to start, but after that, it was snappy enough. I am kind of a Java hater (although, contrary to most haters, I acknowledge I am and that it is irrational; I don't make futile attemps to make it look like there are real reasons to discard a language independently of the context), specially when someone calls C++ programmers lazy and mediocre when there is at least as many of them in the Java side, but I can recognize when someone did his homework with regards to coding, even if I don't like his language of choice.

[Sonadow]

Its only problem was the time it took to start

Which unfortunately is the one thing most people love to hate. They expect the JVM to be able to start up almost instantly.

[mrugiero]

Which unfortunately is the one thing most people love to hate. They expect the JVM to be able to start up almost instantly.

That's one of the parts I hate the most, yeah. But as a hater I am, I avoid Java apps like the plague (JDownloader was quite the exception, as I didn't find at the time any alternative, and when I've found them I had already discovered QBittorrent with it's search engines <3), so maybe I was just lucky enough that it was only startup, and you meant the UI was generally slow.

Anyway, a possible solution to this JVM being slow (which AFAIK, is used in Windows versions of Java, maybe in Linux too but I ignore it, is to actually load the JVM ahead of time. I don't know if that would completely solve the slow startup, but it should help.

[energyman]

people who have no clue at all love to bash c++.
just for the same reasons others who have no clue at all love to bash java.

The puzzling thing is that people still listen to that toxic destroyer Miguel.

[quasipedia]

The puzzling thing is that people still listen to that toxic destroyer Miguel.

Who needs facts when you can just trust some random opinions?

[AnonymousCoward]

It's obvious that the C++ haters use C++ like a glorified C (or never even used it properly), well guess what it isn't! If you use C strings and arrays or pointers in C++ (unless absolutely neccessary, which should be almost never) then you are doing it WRONG.

In C++:
prefer vectors over arrays
string over c strings
references over pointers
exceptions over error return codes
classes over structs

and there are many more things which I haven't listed.

I've seen so many "C++" libraries which use pointers, arrays and c strings that it isn't even funny, like a bad joke. and let me not get started about the "some compilers don't support exceptions" which is bullshit, any decent c++ compiler supports exceptions.

And yes changing to C++ from C because of memory or speed reasons is simply stupid, stick to what you're good at/what you know.

If you've ever written proper C++ then you would know it is a higher level language like Java, things are a lot easier to get done except some stuff like networking but there's boost for that. In my opinions proper usage of C++ is superior to C and it had the benefit of being at least as fast as C (unless you don't know what you're doing).

Ever wanted to add gzip support to your program? In c++ you simply usd boost and added a gzip filter which is compatible with iostream which means the majority of your code stays unchanged, and it's only a few lines of code extra.

[Apopas]

No, the Moonlight runtime is written in C++. It's one of the reasons it sucks.

It sucks nevertheless.

[AnonymousCoward]

Which unfortunately is the one thing most people love to hate. They expect the JVM to be able to start up almost instantly.

With JIT cache startup times would be history but oracle focuses more on the server side and there it does not matter.
I doubt they would add this feature anytime soon, if ever.