Why is object creation fast in Scala?

Question

From this comparison of serialization libraries on the JVM, it looks like it is faster to create an object in Scala than in Java. The difference is in nanoseconds, though.

Is there any real reason why it would take less time to create an object in Scala, or the graph just reflects improper benchmarking or some other sort of imprecision?

Answer 1

40 nanosecond difference in object creation time is background noise in a Intel Core i7 920.

Assuming the numbers are an average over several runs, 40 nanoseconds is just 0.04 microseconds. Assuming on Windows 7 64-bit that the High Performance clock was functioning correctly, you're probably looking at hiccups in windows, the phase of the moon, statistical error, measuring program error, memory allocation implementation speeds, or something else entirely.

Answer 2

Scala creates more small objects automatically. This makes object creation faster on average but the serialization size larger.