I want to write a backend system for a web site (it'll be a custom search-style service). It needs to be highly concurrent and fast. Given my wish for concurrency, I was planning on using a functional language such as Haskell or Scala. However, speed is also a priority. http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org results appear to show that Java is almost as fast as C/C++, Scala is generally pretty good, but Haskell ranges from slower to a lot slower for most tasks. Does anyone have any performance benchmarks/experience of using Haskell vs Scala vs Java for performing highly concurrent tasks? Some sites I've seen suggest that Scala has memory leaks which could be terrible for long running services such as this one. What should I write my service in, or what should I take into account before choosing (performance and concurrency being the highest priorities)? Thanks

This question is superficially about performance of code compiled with GHC vs code running on the JVM. But there are a lot of other factors that come into play. People <ul> <li>Is there a team working on this, or just you? <ul> <li>How familiar/comfortable is that team with these languages?</li> <li>Is this a language you (all) want to invest time in learning?</li> </ul> </li> <li>Who will maintain it?</li> </ul> Behavior <ul> <li>How long is this project expected to live?</li> <li>When, if ever, is downtime acceptable?</li> <li>What kind of processing will this program do? <ul> <li>Are there well-known libraries that can aid you in this?</li> <li>Are you willing to roll your own library? How difficult would this be in that language?</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Community <ul> <li>How much do you plan to draw from open source?</li> <li>How much do you plan to contribute to open source?</li> <li>How lively and helpful is the community <ul> <li>on StackOverflow</li> <li>on irc</li> <li>on Reddit</li> <li>working on open source components that you might make use of</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Tools <ul> <li>Do you need an IDE?</li> <li>Do you need code profiling?</li> <li>What kind of testing do you want to do?</li> <li>How helpful is the language's documentation? And for the libraries you will use?</li> <li>Are there tools to fill needs you didn't even know you had yet?</li> </ul> There are a million and one other factors that you should consider. Whether you choose Scala, Java, or Haskell, I can almost guarantee that you will be able to meet your performance requirements (meaning, it probably requires approximately the same amount of intelligence to meet your performance requirements in any of those languages). The Haskell community is notoriously helpful, and my limited experience with the Scala community has been much the same as with Haskell. Personally I am starting to find Java rather icky compared to languages that at least have first-class functions. Also, there are a lot more Java programmers out there, causing a proliferation of information on the internet about Java, for better (more likely what you need to know is out there) or worse (lots of noise to sift through). tl;dr I'm pretty sure performance is roughly the same. Consider other criteria.

Haskell vs JVM performance [closed]

Tags:

java

jvm

haskell

scala

I want to write a backend system for a web site (it'll be a custom search-style service). It needs to be highly concurrent and fast. Given my wish for concurrency, I was planning on using a functional language such as Haskell or Scala.

However, speed is also a priority. http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org results appear to show that Java is almost as fast as C/C++, Scala is generally pretty good, but Haskell ranges from slower to a lot slower for most tasks.

Does anyone have any performance benchmarks/experience of using Haskell vs Scala vs Java for performing highly concurrent tasks?

Some sites I've seen suggest that Scala has memory leaks which could be terrible for long running services such as this one.

What should I write my service in, or what should I take into account before choosing (performance and concurrency being the highest priorities)?

Thanks

512

asked Nov 18 '11 16:11

user1037541

1 Answers

This question is superficially about performance of code compiled with GHC vs code running on the JVM. But there are a lot of other factors that come into play.

People

Is there a team working on this, or just you?
- How familiar/comfortable is that team with these languages?
- Is this a language you (all) want to invest time in learning?
Who will maintain it?

Behavior

How long is this project expected to live?
When, if ever, is downtime acceptable?
What kind of processing will this program do?
- Are there well-known libraries that can aid you in this?
- Are you willing to roll your own library? How difficult would this be in that language?

Community

How much do you plan to draw from open source?
How much do you plan to contribute to open source?
How lively and helpful is the community
- on StackOverflow
- on irc
- on Reddit
- working on open source components that you might make use of

Tools

Do you need an IDE?
Do you need code profiling?
What kind of testing do you want to do?
How helpful is the language's documentation? And for the libraries you will use?
Are there tools to fill needs you didn't even know you had yet?

There are a million and one other factors that you should consider. Whether you choose Scala, Java, or Haskell, I can almost guarantee that you will be able to meet your performance requirements (meaning, it probably requires approximately the same amount of intelligence to meet your performance requirements in any of those languages). The Haskell community is notoriously helpful, and my limited experience with the Scala community has been much the same as with Haskell. Personally I am starting to find Java rather icky compared to languages that at least have first-class functions. Also, there are a lot more Java programmers out there, causing a proliferation of information on the internet about Java, for better (more likely what you need to know is out there) or worse (lots of noise to sift through).

tl;dr I'm pretty sure performance is roughly the same. Consider other criteria.

106

answered Sep 19 '22 05:09

Dan Burton

Related questions
                            
                                Hibernate persist entity without fetching association object. just by id
                            
                                Why Doesn't Java 8 Type Inference Consider Exceptions Thrown by Lambdas in Overload Selection?
                            
                                Why always have single implementation interfaces in service and dao layers?
                            
                                Creating an array to store generic types in Java [duplicate]
                            
                                Reading inputStream using BufferedReader.readLine() is too slow
                            
                                What is a "regular file" in Java?
                            
                                Okhttp refresh expired token when multiple requests are sent to the server
                            
                                How to serialize a non-serializable in Java?
                            
                                Java: LockSupport.parkNanos vs Thread.sleep(...)
                            
                                What is endorseddirs and how it is used in a application?
                            
                                How to add json to the body of an http post in java
                            
                                Encrypt and decrypt a password in Java [closed]
                            
                                Jackson Mapper post-construct
                            
                                Using Mockito to mock a local variable of a method
                            
                                How to use Leak Canary
                            
                                Java open-source project to contribute [closed]
                            
                                Does the JDK provide a dummy consumer?
                            
                                Are Java code signing certificates the same as SSL certificates?
                            
                                Why doesn't Java 8's Predicate<T> extend Function<T, Boolean>
                            
                                Gson - Automatic quote (") escaping?

Donate For Us

If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!

Donate Us With