On 3/1/07, Len Bullard <cbullard@h...> wrote:
[...]
>
> Maybe not orthogonal to the *best*, but it can be shown that the AJAX
> architecture is not a red hot performer.  One benchmark given on the VRML
> list by a developer shows an approximate 100 to 1 slowdown when using
> Javascript vs Java.  I won't quote the details but he was testing with a 2D
> matrix inverse routine and the VM on a 2.33 Mac.  Quoting, "Javascript is
> 71x slower than (1.4% as fast as) Java -client, or 158x slower than
> (0.6% as fast as) Java -server".

On a web browser, javascript is integrated into the browser. This mean
a JS script is directly evaluated, while a Java applet need to load
the virtual machine.
On 486,586, Pentium II and Pentium III computer with IE4, IE5, IE6,
Netscape 4.61, Firefox 1,etc.. pages with applets frezze the browser,
all the browser, like 2 / 8 seconds loading the vm. Even if Java is
much faster than Javascript, that frezze is a deal breaker for users.
The  added delay (2/8 seconds) make the total bigger than javascript.

On a Java integrated browser, IF loading a applet is fast,  Java will
be prefered. That browser was HotJava (maybe).

Java is programing, and Javascript is scripting. Scripting is easy and
can be created ad-hoc in heterodoxical ways, and still work.
Programming takes a programmer, and a design, can't be ad-hoc of bad
things happend. Creating programs is slower than creating scripting
and much expensive.  Complex problems need programs, because script
not-scale. Scripting is optimized for small snippets of code,.. big
scripts make for unreadable and error prone code (but is feasible by
very smart and talented people with huge pools of luck).

On a non-java web browser:
 - Java is slower.
 - Java is expensive
 - Javascript is fast
 - Javascript is cheap
On a java-aware browser:
 - Java is very fast
 - Java is expensive
 - Javascript is fast
 - Javascript is cheap

If you really need raw speed C or C++ will be always faster than Java.
But will be even more expensive than Java, because you need to rewrite
code for different OS.

Theres also stuff, like the Variant type, usefull to make code
cheaper, but slower.