Welcome to my blog! I will be updating this blog during the entirety of my senior research project, something that I'm very interested in and excited about. My main question is as follows: In what specific functions is Java faster than C++ and vise versa? This question is infamous on the internet and is known to ignite flame-wars in forums and comment threads alike (think Mac vs. PC or Dogs vs. Cats); however, the debates almost always end up more like: "C++ is obviously faster, duh! Why do you think Apple uses it?" or... "Bro, do you even code? Java is best!" This obviously is not the goal of my research work. I hope to determine with factual and statistical certainty the pros and cons of both languages, and discern which would be more optimized for specific applications.
*Phew*
I get the great privilege to work alongside some brilliant minds of research team of the ASU Computer Science department, and a very kind and intelligent Associative Professor of Computer Science named Dr. Rida Bazzi.
And just for the sake of documentation, I thought it would be a good idea to take down my current opinions and biases for future reference and comparison. So here goes...
My original argument right off the bat and without having done any experiments yet is the following: I believe that through tedious and careful
programming, it is entirely possible to optimize C++ code to a higher degree
than Java; however I believe that the cost of production and maintenance of
that program would be significantly higher due to C++’s inability to be ported
to other machines, and it’s difficult manual memory allocations. However, at this point, due to the absence of any actual testing, I acknowledge I may be slightly biased. I acknowledge the
possibility that I am biased towards Java because I have done more extensive
study in the Java language, and it’s code makes more sense to me than C++ code.
That being said, C++ is widely acknowledged for being one the most difficult
languages to learn to use effectively. To prevent this bias, I hope to be able
to consult with my peers at ASU, to be sure my C++ programs are effectively
optimized and that I am testing it’s applications with fairness.
Thanks a bunch for reading, and don't worry, in the future I will be bringing some visual aids and some really cool graphs to help combat the wall of text before you. Feel free to sign up for email updates in the sidebar, and stay connected! See you soon!
-Jeff
