On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Jochen Theodorou <[email protected]> wrote:
> Am 17.02.2011 15:55, schrieb Rémi Forax:
> [...]
>>
>> It only works for the JDK :(
>>
>> http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/vm/class-data-sharing.html
>
> you mean only for the rt.jar and maybe other internal jars.
>
> So it is not usable for us language guys... For many languages it would be
> very good to be able to make some kind of root image that can be used.
> Basically that is what the fork for the JVM is intending to do as well.
> Something like that is really badly needed I think

I agree, and I'd like to add that memory mapping the classes is only a
partial solution; the optimum would be to also save live object
instances (perhaps starting from selected roots), since I suspect that
for many languages a significant part of the loading time is spent
establishing the initial state of the language runtime (at least this
is true for ABCL [1]). Doing this in general is not easy at all (what
about open file descriptors, running threads, and all similarly
non-persistent resources?), and I don't see compelling reasons for
Oracle to embark in such an effort (given that the JVM is prevalently
used in server environments where cold restarts are rare). Still,
save-image is supported by all major Lisp implementations (and
Smalltalk, I believe), and used to minimize startup times and deliver
self-contained executables.

[1] http://common-lisp.net/project/armedbear/

Cheers,
Alessio

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JVM 
Languages" 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/jvm-languages?hl=en.

Reply via email to