Web-based editor for Kotlin, JetBrains' new JVM language

Re:Web-based editor for Kotlin, JetBrains' new JVM language by verroq on Thursday January 12, 2012 @07:37AM (#3456099)

The specific way Scala is bound to the JVM (as a 8mb class library that needs to be loaded every time) is the reason it is slow to compile and by implication, slow-er startup.

I suppose we do need to take account of language features. C++ is a difficult language to parse, and with a bit of template magic, and heavy compiler optimizations that can be applied. Haskell has type inference and is statically typed, that has to cost it some what.

Scala has a 8mb JVM library to load, and also type inference. It gets a double whammy. However I'm willing to bet is the JVM is contributing a significant portion of startup time, with both JVM startup time, loading java libraries, then loading scala library. If the JVM wasn't part of the problem, then there is no need for people to create tools like fsc to speed up compile time.

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Re:Web-based editor for Kotlin, JetBrains' new JVM language by timclark on Thursday January 12, 2012 @08:15AM (#3456191)

Plain old Java compiles way faster than Scala I don't believe the JVM is the main contributor to the slowdown.

Scala compilation is complex, partly due to its extremely sophisticated type system, it is also quite resource intensive - I have got the type checker to run out of memory on multiple occasions I have never seen a Java compilation fail due to lack of memory. fsc and incremental compilation do speed things up but it is still slower than compiling an equivalent amount of Java.

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Re:Web-based editor for Kotlin, JetBrains' new JVM language by e-dragoev on Thursday January 12, 2012 @08:35AM (#3456235)

Then just use fsc instead of scalac. It is part of the standard Scala distribution. Last time I tried it - fsc was not that much slower than javac.

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Re:Web-based editor for Kotlin, JetBrains' new JVM language by jsight on Thursday January 12, 2012 @09:05AM (#3456326)

Yes, but is it faster than EJC? I'd bet that's the frame of reference for most Java devs.

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