If you were in my situation, would you feel comfortable putting your professional credibility out on a limb to say that Java could be faster than Objective-C to the technical manager?
In theory and from what I know I think it could well be faster. That is an unbiased view and the unbiased view also hold that it is within the margin of error for it to be a bit slower too. What I don't have is any actual performance benchmarks which would give me empirical evidence for comparison. I wonder also if it could end up being anecdotal as I really don't know if the suggestion of porting the Objective-C part of the system to Java would be dismissed as totally impractical. However it is not a huge company and the system isn't massive. It is big enough that it could take significant time but not hopeless. The other pain with the setup is that the Java code cannot be compiled on its own. It uses a tool called Jigs to allow Java code to call Objective-C by generating wrappers to make the objects look like Java ones. I suppose this might be a GNUStep answer to SWIG with C++. The compilation uses GNU makefiles because the extra dependency resolution is being handled by GNU Step extensions to GNU make. The practicality of this means every new Java file I create is having to be added to a GNU make file. Each new package requires a GNU make file in it and the parent package make file has to be updated to add the new sub directory. This all feels like a bunch of extra tedious work that I never had to do before when working with Ant. It is an annoyance but liveable. When illegal argument guys argue the merits of Ant vs Ivy vs Maven maybe they should spare a thought for the poor guy using GNU make. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
