Re: Enums: Properties vs. Methods

From:
Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:26:36 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<1f76f26d-4b21-4a26-92b4-bb6553b9cad6@f30g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On 31 Mrz., 14:41, Lew <no...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

Robert Klemme wrote:

Lew<l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

Yes. So? that's what HotSpot does, except it's not one per insta=

nce,

it's N>= 1 per instance, potentially. HotSpot optimizes for
individual hot spots in the code, hence the name.


Hmm... Considering

public void hotSpotMethod(Valve v) {
   // code
   if (v.isOpen()) {
     // ...
   }
   else {
     // ...
   }
   // more code
}

Since this method can be invoked with different Valve instances the
only optimization I can see so far is

public void hotSpotMethod(Valve v) {
   // code
   if (v.open) {
     // ...
   }
   else {
     // ...
   }
   // more code
}

or are you saying that we can actually get this?


I make no claims whatsoever about individually crafted examples designed =

to

show where HotSpot might fail. I only repeat publicly available inform=

ation

about what it does.


These examples were not crafted to show where HotSpot fails but to
learn what kind of optimizations you had in mind. I went from

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/tech/index-jsp-136373.html

and found

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/whitepaper-135217.html#method
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/whitepaper-135217.html#optimizations

which does not give away too much. There's also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_performance

But that did not provide too much insight either.

http://www.google.de/search?q=java+hotspot+optimizations

Wasn't too good either. What public resources did you have in mind?

public void hotSpotMethod(boolean valve_open) {
   // code
   if (valve_open) {
     // ...
   }
   else {
     // ...
   }
   // more code
}

...

Yes, it wins, but that has nothing to do with memory or performance in
the JVM.

For the toy example given I would expect no difference, since the
final variables ocmpile to constants anyway.

But those final variables are only constant /per instance/. How woul=

d

hotspot be able to inline them?


Per instance, or perhaps per call. Of course. It might then un-inli=

ne them

for a later call, then re-inline them - even the exact same call if condi=

tions

change that affect optimization.


Yes, but frankly, that's too general for me. Can you be more specific
with regard to the current case we are discussing?

The beauty of HotSpot is that it accounts for changing run-time circumsta=

nces,

so it can perform optimizations that elude static analysis.


Certainly.

You should read about it.

...

As for JVM effects, I would expect the two approaches to be
indistinguishable. Constant variables are compiled into constants i=

n

the code, so they get treated identically with constants (being, after
all, constants in truth) at run time.

I don't think these final members (which are not static!) can be
compiled into the code because there is just one class (and hence one
instance of each method) but multiple instances with different sets of
values for their final members.


The JLS requires them to be compiled into the code. And regardless of =

what

you don't think, that's exactly what happens. You should read about it=

..

Start here: JLS, =A717.5.3, as I cited earlier.


It seems that is not a good place to start (see other postings). :-)

Cheers

robert

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