Real-Time Java™ Platform Programming

Java's Problem Domain

The Java programming language is not the language for problems that require plain speed. In an academic world that assertion would not matter, but many real problems push the performance limits of their hardware. Some programming tools and practices are focused on performance. Good optimizing compilers and profiling tools are prized because they wring better performance out of a system, and brute assembly optimization is still practiced.

From the real-time perspective, Java's biggest problem isn't its performance, but its garbage collector. Unless you use it carefully, Java will pause at unpredictable moments and collect garbage for milliseconds. Better garbage collectors make long garbage collection pauses much less frequent ...