Java Performance Tuning [Paperback]

Jack Shirazi (Author)

Book Description

Series: Java Series | Publication Date: January 15, 2000

No matter what language they're programming in, developers always wish things would run faster! Especially when writing mission-critical applications, no one wants to be limited by the programming environment. Java Performance Tuning provides all the details you need to know to "performance tune" any type of Java program and make Java code run significantly faster.

Java Performance Tuning contains step-by-step instructions on all aspects of the performance tuning process, right from such early considerations as setting goals, measuring performance, and choosing a compiler. Extensive examples for tuning many parts of an application are described in detail, and any pitfalls are identified. The book also provides performance tuning checklists that enable developers to make their tuning as comprehensive as possible.

Java Performance Tuning is a book to help you "roll up your sleeves" and examine your code in detail in order to apply different tuning techniques to produce the best possible result.

The book shows you how to:

• Create and plan a tuning strategy
• Avoid performance penalties from inefficient code
• Minimize the number of objects a program creates
• Improve the behavior of loops and switches
• Use threads effectively

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jack Shirazi is an independent consultant. He was an early adopter of Java, and for the last few years has consulted mainly for the financial sector, focusing on Java performance. Before using Java, Jack spent many years tuning Smalltalk applications. Jack's early career involved research in theoretical physics and bioinformatics. Jack has publications in the field of protein structure and is proud to have contributed to some of the core Perl5 modules.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596000154
• ISBN-13: 978-0596000158
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,569,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, December 6, 2000

By 

Jason Conner (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Performance Tuning (Paperback)

The book ranges rather widely, covering a huge number of tuning details. The author seems to know hands-on performance tuning very well, and many of the examples were directly applicable to our own development. There is only one chapter on designing for performance (I would have liked more), but in that chapter he did identify precisely the issues that we encountered in our project. The example of double sorting internationalized text transferred directly to our project and speeded up a crucial area of our presentation. I do recommend this book, but do not expect a design book. This is strongly hands-on performance tuning.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provides ideas on tactical optimization for performance gain, November 2, 2005

By 

Manish Singla (Denver, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Java Performance Tuning (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book provides good ideas on tactical optimization for performance gain but could have also covered architectural patterns and process for performance optimization.
This book covers the areas of optimizing compilers, I/O, RAM footprint, small object management and deployment etc.

Next edition may also cover architectural decisions (or patterns) which are costly to reverse later. Also, coverage on processes for performance optimization will be great in next edition. Getting a program to run faster costs money, and thus this business decision should have process ( or guidelines for series of high level actions ) to facilitate the optimization.

Other things, I would like to cover in next edition are
1) How to choose between "speed up the slow things" or "do the slow things less often".
2) How to identify ACTUAL areas of improvement. i.e. Importance of automated run that reasonably simulates the program under its usual conditions. (Example, our test on performance gave excellent results. But European customers rejected the product because we had not simulated ocean hop of packets as 2 databases were in America. Or importance of using a multi-user simulation system to identify real problems i.e. transaction interactions etc).
3) Importance of cohesive, loosely coupled and well factored modules for behaviour-preserving transformations of performance.
4) Importance of measurement before starting optimization.

Anyway, great book.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for developers..., February 22, 2001

By 

Ivan Gowan (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Performance Tuning (Paperback)

This book is diverse in it's approach to java performance tuning. It is very good at describing common bottlenecks in detail and providing concrete examples of how to write better performing code.

It has good coverage of topics including Object creation, I/O and sorting. It illustrates efficient ways to write loops and switches and provides insight into the performance costs of exceptions and casts. 'Java Performance Tuning' also shows how to implement class specific collection classes among other topics.

It takes a comprehensive look at the java profiling tools available and gives illustrated advantages of applying specific techniques. Performance results are contrasted for the various JVMs (JDK1.2 with and without JIT, JDK1.3, Hotspot 1.0).

'Java Performance Tuning' has improved my programming and will sit on my shelf as an excellent reference I know I can turn to if asked to tune a Java application.