Gradle already mitigates the startup time problem with the Gradle Daemon, so 
typical client invocations will be faster than without it.

From: Benjamin Sieffert [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2014 7:44 AM
To: KARR, DAVID
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Will Nashorn facilitate Gradle being used for more web application 
assembly and test tasks, without using Node?

A problem with JVM-based components being used in a tool-like manner is the 
relatively huge cost associated with just starting the JVM.
E.g. if I start a JRuby-console ("irb"), it takes 2-3 seconds, whereas a MRI 
console basically opens instantly. Even with the work being put into reducing
nashorn's own warm-up time, the JVM's share will remain. An approach here seems 
to be to have one JVM running at all times and then relegating the
invocations of your tools to it. Nailgun is an implementation of this 
recommended by the JRuby team. But such an approach certainly brings its own
share of problems. In the end, I think that with the JIT, the JVM's very 
promise has always been that getting prime performance on it requires your
application to be a bit on the longer-lasting side. Otherwise, AOT optimized 
code will just be plain faster. And with most commandline tools, I feel,
invocation speed means a lot.

On 24 December 2014 at 19:02, KARR, DAVID 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Nashorn and Avatar are interesting to me, but not personally as much for the 
ability to write standalone or server-based JavaScript applications.

I see Node.js being primarily used in two different ways.  It is used to write 
those standalone and server-based JavaScript applications, but it is also used 
entirely in the building and testing process of web applications, primarily 
with the Karma, Bower, and Grunt Node modules. I imagine there are other Node 
modules like that that are primarily used as a tool, not as a component in a 
custom Node.js application.

You might consider this a "niche" application, but I'm primarily interested to 
see whether Nashorn will be able to make it easier to use Gradle to build web 
applications and run JavaScript unit tests, without involving Node.js.



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