Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 13:09:32 01/29/02
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On January 29, 2002 at 12:09:13, Peter Kappler wrote: >On January 28, 2002 at 23:39:40, Dann Corbit wrote: > >>On January 28, 2002 at 23:30:30, James Swafford wrote: >>[snip] >>>Are you aware there's a reasonably strong program on ICC written in Java? >>> >>>Information about Grok(C) (Last disconnected Mon Jan 28 2002 01:28): >>> >>> rating [need] win loss draw total best >>>Bullet 2532 [8] 266 49 29 344 2532 (05-Jan-2002) >>>Blitz 2572 865 304 130 1299 2668 (04-Apr-2001) >>>Standard 2288 27 59 18 104 2346 (08-Sep-2001) >>> >>> 1: Grok v2.10 >>> 2: A Java chess program! >>> 3: 1.4GHz Athlon >>> 4: Written and operated by Pyro. >>> >>>Pyro is Pete Kappler. Pretty good, huh? :) >> >>Mind-blowing amazement. I would like to hear what techniques he has used in the >>Java engine. When you see a cow that can run in the Kentucky Derby, it makes >>you wonder what they have been feeding her. > > >Hi Dann, > >No special techniques. Java simply isn't as slow as most folks think. I use >IBM's VM which is excellent (50% faster than Sun's). I've toyed with the idea >of a C++ rewrite, but I don't think I would get more than a 1.5-2x speedup. > >Actually, this reminds me that I've been meaning to look at some of the native >compilers that are now available for Java. Maybe I can find out if my 1.5-2x >estimate is correct. My early experiences with speed (when Java first came out) were pretty dismal. Pretty much just made me abandon learning more about it. From here (this from a Java proponent), we have this: http://www.javacoffeebreak.com/articles/thinkinginjava/comparingc++andjava.html "The biggest potential stumbling block is speed: interpreted Java runs in the range of 20 times slower than C. Nothing prevents the Java language from being compiled and there are just-in-time compilers appearing at this writing that offer significant speed-ups. It is not inconceivable that full native compilers will appear for the more popular platforms, but without those there are classes of problems that will be insoluble with Java because of the speed issue." See also: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~cs154/PerfComp/ I would be interested to see how your experiments in timing turn out. I suspect a lot has improved since my early experiments. I also found that the java sites that benchmarked against C in those early tests were definitely sandbagging the C compilers in a serious way (easily cutting the performance in half). Probably, they just did not know how to use the C compilers. I think if both sides (Java and C) are trying hard it will make a much better test. If Java can be speed competitive, I would like to know how to do it. I have some friends who are Java developers, and I am sure they would be keen to know about it too.
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