TornadoVM Continues Adapting Java OpenJDK/GraalVM For Heterogeneous Hardware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: TornadoVM Continues Adapting Java OpenJDK/GraalVM For Heterogeneous Hardware

A new release of TornadoVM is now available, the open-source plug-in to OpenJDK and GraalVM to allow for Java code to run on heterogeneous hardware with ease -- including various GPU models as well as FPGAs...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/TornadoVM-0.15.1

[anarki2]

Geez, how many more Java distros? There's also no packages.

[cynic]

despite what haters says, Java is alive and kicking

[caligula]

despite what haters says, Java is alive and kicking

Indeed. The forthcoming LTS 21 release will include stuff like lightweight threads for I/O. They're also planning to slim down the overhead of objects, speed up the processing of values, and make the generics more universal. On top of that, the generational ZGC garbage collector is pretty nice for low latency stuff. They've also suggested simplifying the amount of syntactic burden needed for small scripts. So, basically many of the old sources of complaints are going away.

[andrei_me]

So, basically many of the old sources of complaints are going away.

Yeah, now people complain that Java releases a new version too fast 😅

[marios]

Well, if your program is is compute Intensive, to the point that GPU offloading is needed, you shouldn't be using java in the first place. Actually, I cannot find a single use case for java. It looks like the worst of all worlds for me. Slow, verbose and authoritarian. Yes, I just wanted to spread my java hate...

[caligula]

Well, if your program is is compute Intensive, to the point that GPU offloading is needed, you shouldn't be using java in the first place. Actually, I cannot find a single use case for java. It looks like the worst of all worlds for me. Slow, verbose and authoritarian. Yes, I just wanted to spread my java hate...

Java's libraries are much more stable than what you find via NPM. Just try both and see how quickly the NPM app suffers from bit-rot. Also Java is very old, but the performance is quite good. Not as good as C++ or Rust, but often better than what you can achieve with scripting languages. Java has a terrible launch speed, but then again JS/TS applications have huge memory consumption.

[marios]

Java's libraries are much more stable than what you find via NPM. Just try both and see how quickly the NPM app suffers from bit-rot. Also Java is very old, but the performance is quite good. Not as good as C++ or Rust, but often better than what you can achieve with scripting languages. Java has a terrible launch speed, but then again JS/TS applications have huge memory consumption.

Well, just because it is not as bad as JavaScript, does not mean that it is anywhere close to good. Your argument is like "A turtle is fast because it is faster than a snail". My view is, if you want to write a script, use a scripting language (bash, python, etc). If you want to write a program, use a natively compiled language (C, C++, rust, etc). Java is neither for scripts not for programs...

[caligula]

Well, just because it is not as bad as JavaScript, does not mean that it is anywhere close to good. Your argument is like "A turtle is fast because it is faster than a snail". My view is, if you want to write a script, use a scripting language (bash, python, etc). If you want to write a program, use a natively compiled language (C, C++, rust, etc). Java is neither for scripts not for programs...

We have Rust now, and also more recent C/C++ versions, but if you wanted memory or thread safety, or (efficient) automatic memory management, there wasn't any. Java has delivered those since 1995. Boehm gc for C/C++ is conservative and inefficient. There are also articles demonstrating how the switch to Rust, Java, Kotlin etc. has improved the status of CVEs. So there is a good reason why languages such as Java, C#, Swift, Rust, Go etc. exist. The biggest problem with Java is that during 2005 -- 2017 there was very little progress. Mainly lambdas. They're roughly 10 years behind the schedule.

Then again, if you take a look at languages like PHP, I could say PHP 8 is the first truly usable PHP release. It used to be called the fractal of bad design. Now it's ok. If the next Java version (21) was released in 2013, it would have been pretty awesome. Engines like Unity3D could have considered it as well.