JavaOne 2010 Abstract of the Day #12: Speedy Scripting: Productivity and Performance

Although it is common to associate the words "scripting" and "productivity," it is not so common to associate "scripting" and "performance."  In the JavaOne 2010 presentation "Speedy Scripting: Productivity and Performance" (S314094), Per Bothner examines the question, "Can we combine the advantages of scripting languages with compiled programming languages?"  This session is scheduled to begin at 1 pm on Tuesday, September 21, in Parc 55's Divisidero.  Here is the complete abstract for this presentation:

Can we combine the advantages of scripting languages (no compilation step, real-eval-print interfaces, less boilerplate, less typing, optional or no type specifiers) with compiled programming languages (fast execution, good error-checking, sophisticated type systems)? Does scripting performance matter, and if so, how does language design affect it? In this session, we'll look at various languages, including benchmark results from the "computer languages shootout," contrasting programming languages such as Scala and JavaFX (faster but less agile) with scripting languages such as JRuby, Jython, and Groovy (which struggle more with performance). And in between, two "Lisp" languages, Kawa and Clojure, that are worth considering.

Per Bothner's publications and software he has written can be found on his homepage.  He is the author of the Kawa Language Framework (mentioned in the abstract).  He has also been working on the OpenJFX Compiler project in his "day job."  Per is also one of the authors of XQuery Kick Start and presented on Kawa at 2003 JavaOne.