[conspire] End of an era for Java

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tony Godshall (tony at of.net):

> Avery Pennarun tries to make Java do better than Python at
> something ("trying on purpose to make a biased benchmark
> that Java would pass in order to make myself appear more
> well-balanced")
> 
> http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201110
> 
> The speaker notes are quite funny in the PDF.

Also quite instructive.  I hadn't really grasped the implications of the
Global Interpreter Lock for threaded Python/other-interpreted code,
i.e., don't bother except for I/O-bound threads, because that
parallelisation you think you're buying won't happen.

And the tips for what to call from C are well stated.

> I'm sure some will stick with Java due to codebase
> momentum or unwillingness to retrain but I'm not
> seeing any reason to upgrade.

I try to keep a working and tested OpenJDK-based stack around using
whatever's the flavour du jour version, because otherwise something's
going to pop up that needs it in a hurry, leading to a mad rush.

Still, Pennarun sure makes a good case for giving the whole mess the
heave-ho, if only on account of the predominant 'RAM?  Sure, I'll take
it all, please' attitude.

E.g., Dell OpenManage (Java) needs to be killed frequently, e.g., via
cfengine oversight, when it starts to grab everything....

#!/bin/sh
total="0"
for size in $(/bin/ps -eo vsz,comm | /bin/grep dsm_sa_datamgrd | /bin/awk '{print $1}'); do 
total=$(expr $total + $size);
done
if [ "${total}" -gt 300000 ]; then     [restart omitted]
fi