Java Performance Tuning (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Jack Shirazi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596003773 | ISBN-13: 978-0596003777 | Publication Date: January 2003 | Edition: Second Edition

Performance has been an important issue for Java developers ever since the first version hit the streets. Over the years, Java performance has improved dramatically, but tuning is essential to get the best results, especially for J2EE applications. You can never have code that runs too fast.

Java Peformance Tuning, 2nd edition provides a comprehensive and indispensable guide to eliminating all types of performance problems. Using many real-life examples to work through the tuning process in detail, JPT shows how tricks such as minimizing object creation and replacing strings with arrays can really pay off in improving your code's performance.

Tuning J2EE applications bears many similarities to tuning J2SE apps, but important and specific considerations apply. For this reason, Java Performance Tuning, Second Edition includes four new chapters: a new chapter on J2EE application tuning in general followed by chapters on tuning JDBC, servlets and JSPs, and EJBs.

Java Performance Tuning offers common-sense advice about what to tune and what to leave alone, emphasizing techniques that provide big performance gains with minimal code restructuring. It gives you crucial guidance that helps you tune without destroying your program's architecture. Blindly changing things in an effort to make a program run faster is a great way to create buggy, unmaintainable code. Java Performance Tuning teaches you to work efficiently and effectively, resulting in code that is robust, maintainable, and fast.

Java Performance Tuning, Second Edition shows you how to:

• Create a performance plan
• Glean information about your program's behavior from profiling tools
• Identify bottlenecks before tuning
• Minimize the number of objects your program creates, particularly critical for J2EE applications
• Optimize the use of strings
• Avoid performance penalties from inefficient code
• Improve the behavior of loops and switches
• Optimize I/O behavior
• Use appropriate algorithms for sorting and other common tasks
• Use threads effectively
• Optimize the performance of distributed systems
• Speed up servlets and JSPs
• Structure JDBC usage efficiently
• Use effective design patterns to optimize EJB performance

Covers JDK 1.4

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: 600 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003773
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003777
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,127 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.