I remember about 10 years ago the promise was that JRuby was going to let ruby be basically as fast as Java for many things. Invokedynamic and all that.
It can be with work. This is basically true of all languages. I remember telling my team that I wanted them to use Java instead of python for some new service we were building because I wanted it to scale better. They were not happy about it, and they coded up two versions, one in python and one in Java. I was shocked by the results, they performed roughly equally in terms of latency and scaling. When I dug into it, the very abstract Java library that gave them the power of python ran about as fast as python. They could get rid of that library which made them far more productive, but then the project took longer and cost more.
In fairness, the Java version had an easier path for optimization, but there are no free lunches.
> When I dug into it, the very abstract Java library that gave them the power of python ran about as fast as python. They could get rid of that library which made them far more productive, but then the project took longer and cost more.
Sounds like they were determined to write Python on Java. Doing it that way likely has a lot of performance costs. However, you can’t assume that idiomatic Java code would take that much longer than Python code for a team that was familiar with Java. Likely it comes down to which languages and frameworks a team is familiar with.
I am curious what library was this and what was it doing.
We used spring expression language for dynamic evaluation of (user-defined) expressions in our code and for most cases we could compile and cache the expressions after first usage and invoking them was really fast and close to pure java expressions.
We also had some JVM-python interop which we eventually got rid of (in favor of kotlin) because we were unable to optimize it after a month of effort and it continued to be the biggest bottleneck in the system.
So I am not entirely convinced that there could be real-world usage scenarios that inherently demands so much runtime dynamism that most benefits of JVM optimizations are nullified.
Of course, I'd love to be enlightened otherwise, but rather happy with JVM as of now.
There is nothing at the JVM level that would disallow such dynamism. Clojure, JRuby, JPython all can run on the JVM.
Also, if you are looking for interop, then GraalVM might be worth a look — not the better-known AOT part, but the runtime one, which can seamlessly do interop between a number of languages, and it even optimizes between them!
Yes, being possible and being performant are two very different things.
What I intended to convey in my previous comment was that using strategies like pre-compilation (eg. Spring EL) it is possible to get good performance even for dynamic logic not known at runtime.
So I was curious what was so dynamic about this use case that JVM performance drops down to pythonesque level.
I don't want to speculate - maybe there is something that JVM is unable to optimize; maybe it is something weird happening in the library; or maybe python has gotten really better in recent past or this use case was able to benefit from some python lib with native bindings.
> I remember about 10 years ago the promise was that JRuby was going to let ruby be basically as fast as Java
I’m pretty sure it was more than 10 years ago that Charles Nutter wrote a detailed description of why that wasn’t going to happen without breaking compatibility with Ruby, identifying the specific language features preventing that.
Those are a "philosophy" or "ethical framework" or "moral code", not a religion. Religion by definition entails belief in the supernatural - i.e., that which there is no evidence for, or we would simply call it "physics".
If you de facto deny that supernatural events can’t happen, I’d say you have some pretty strong religious beliefs. If you want to deny that, I’d say that just means you’re not particularly self aware. You can play word games all day, but at the end of the day you’re operating from a set of unproven religious presuppositions about how the world operates (naturalism) and filtering everything through that lens. But I don’t think we’re going to get any further. Good day, sir.
> If anything, breaking up these monopolies will lead to more innovation
Yes, let’s violate a company’s right to exist and conduct business just because we don’t like ads, or have preferences for how the run things. If you’re so concerned that they are not doing the right thing, then you go out and do it.
I am not sure the right for a company to exist, is a real thing. These are artificial entities created by the government that give groups of people liability protection and the ability to act as one entity legally.
It is not really a right, so much as a practical privilege we have set up. As such they should be open to whatever democratic will of the people. If the people arbitrarily decide they can only have so much power or size, then so be it.
The entity sure, but beyond the entity you have a group of people who have created something and want to sell it to you. If the Democratic will of the people said that we should jail them for creating shows we don’t like, I’m sure you’d object. Just because the people will it doesn’t mean it is correct.
People have a right to get together and create things and sell them to you under a contract. You have the right to accept or refuse. That simple.
Right but that’s tangential to the main point which is that if people come together to create something and you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Don’t attempt to strongarm them into making something you like, or punish them legally because you think they have had too much success.
I am all up for first principles thinking, which is what you demonstrated above. The problem with this approach, however, is that you have to think deeply enough to get to the very bottom of each topic. Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth. It's a well-known fact that destabilization of that growth nips away at democratic principles and ultimately leads to totalitarian governance. Just look a the role of economic instability in the Nazi rise to power [1].
So, yes, people may decide that we no longer want a certain type of companies. Heck, let's take it a step further - people may also decide that we want everyone to get a million dollars, no questions asked. But people are smarter than that, which is why we still have democracies.
> Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth
The need of the society is to defend property rights and sustain the rule of law. Economic growth is good, but you can’t make it the top of your list. Besides, we are already awash in too much regulation as it is, we should be heading the other direction towards more liberty. I’m not saying there’s never a time for regulation, just that we are waaaay past the point of reason in many areas.
It feels like we're agreeing on some subjects (eg: too much regulation can kill economic growth), but disagreeing on the importance of economic growth for the defense of property rights and rule of law. My point is that those two items can only be guaranteed in a democratic society (you won't find them in places like Russia, Middle East, most of Africa, etc). In an earlier comment, I referenced a piece that discusses the impact of economic stability on Nazi's rise to power. You will find many other examples of democratic societies turning into totalitarian regimes at the time when people lost faith in elections (which is something they do when they can no longer pay for their food and rent).
Yes I think we do agree on many things. I think in general we both value property rights and that’s a good place to be.
We may disagree on which is the cart and which is the horse. I think that in general you need a moral people who will enforce the rule of law to get economic growth, so the rule of law is the horse. And the horse’s horse is the morality of the people, something Weimar Germany was certainly lacking. Get those in order first and I think prosperity will follow. Try to put prosperity first, then it won’t matter what rule of law you have b/c the most important thing is to make money.
Presumably the ripper has some form of contract with whichever entity they sourced the content from, and piracy undoubtedly violates that contract / ToS.
Could or should? If you want to download a bunch of mp3s without paying the author, knowing that the author has not intended for you to do so, do you think that is right?
The market is currently "dictating" that I have to do business with Amazon no matter how odious I think their practices are. They're almost as hard to avoid as Google at this point.
Amazon, and their primary revenue stream (AWS) is *immune* to boycott because it's so diversified. The fact that a company is immune to boycott is alarming.
No ones forcing you to buy an iPhone; if this is really bothering you, go to Android or petition Microsoft or Amazon to start up their phone efforts again.
The problem with that is that this isn't just about end-users. Apple is being unfair to developers too, and just leaving iOS isn't a viable choice for them. Apple has a 50% market share in the US, so any American company who cut ties with them would instantly lose half of their customer base, since most people won't buy a new phone over a single app.
You act like it’s the developers fault that they hitched their wagon to apple. They knew going in with eyes wide open what the deal is. They can always leave en masse to Android if they feel the deal is not fair.
Yes, they knew going in how unfair Apple is, but they knew the alternative, being shut out from half of their customers, was worse. And are you really suggesting that all app developers need to form a cartel to level the playing field with Apple? If not, how do you suppose they all leave en masse, rather than some staying behind to steal the market share the others left behind?
I’m glad we agree that they willingly entered a contract, no one forced them.
Yes, I’m suggesting that people leave if they are unhappy with Apple. Go to Google; or maybe MS or Amazon will see how hated apple is and start a new phone division. That’s how markets work.
Companies that have seemed on top and undefeatable before have fallen due to customer unhappiness, and can fall quite quickly, too.
I’m also saying that our culture absolute swims in regulation and we as fish just get used to it and are quick to reach for it as a hammer, seeing everything as nails. We are so steeped in it, that in many ways _China_ has a freer economy than the US does. I’d urge much caution here.
I don't quite understand your first sentence, but by your second one it sounds like your answer is basically "yes". That seems like a rather extreme position to take. Are you also opposed to the First Sale Doctrine?
I’m saying if someone tells you that the software sold with his device is locked to to only work with company X, then you are free to buy it or not. You should also be free to put other software on it yourself, like a new OS. You should not take the extreme position of leveraging law to force the seller to write his software the way you like.
So then you do not support the first sale doctrine?
If someone buys something, even like a physical good, you do not believe that the person who bought it, actually owns its, and the seller can put whatever restrictions that they want on the thing that was purchased?
For example, if someone sells a book, you think it would be OK for the book writer to prevent someone from reselling it, or reading the book in a way that the writer does not like.
And even more so, it seems like you do not believe in any form of anti trust laws at all. And you think that all anti trust laws are just illegitimate?
This is an odd position to take, because most people support the first sale doctrine, and also support some form of anti-trust law.
Of course you own it and should be able to put whatever OS you want on it. But you are confusing that with forcing apple to write their software in a way that suits you.
Antitrust laws _can_ be good, but like I said elsewhere, we are a country swimming neck deep in regulation and seem to like our particular hammer. It has a cooling effect on innovation, and China in some ways has a freer economy than we do.
I think it odd that many people rush to strongarm companies through law when there is a perfectly good alternative in Android. Even Microsoft and Amazon have been in the phone business and could get back in, offering you a phone with multiple app stores. Epic could even do it. There doesn’t seem to be enough people who care. You apparently do, and actually I agree with you that Apple should allow alternative app stores. But voluntarily because the people demand it or are leaving for Android, not because the hammer came down on them.
There is very little cost in simply preventing Apple from taking so many intentionally anti-competitive actions.
It is not about forcing Apple to write software. Instead it is about preventing them from spending so much effort and trying to remove other people's ability to install other app stores.
Allowing other app stores, really would not be a huge burden on Apple, and it would give people a lot of choice.
> should be able to put whatever OS you want on it
That is not really very possible when Apple spends so much effort engaging in illegal anti-competitive practices, to prevent other app stores from being installed.
Finally, even if it were possible/easy to provide jailbreaking software, I think that Apple would almost certainly make serious efforts to prevent people from doing that.
But sure, I agree that game companies, and major tech companies should absolutely take action to provide people with very easy ways of jailbreaking people's phone.
Perhaps if Fortnite was available through Epic provided jailbreaking software, then that would be enough to kickstart things, and cause a bunch of other companies to move off of Apple's app store, and move to the jailbreak only version.
EX: imagine if fortnite provide incentives, like "free vbucks" to a large number of people, in order to get a large amount of people to jailbreak their phone, and then imagine if other companies, like Facebook, worked together on that, until almost everyone had a jailbroken phone.
That could certainly work. But I doubt Apple would just let that happen.
> Instead it is about preventing them from spending so much effort and trying to remove other people's ability to install other app stores.
I think we are coming at this from 2 separate sets of foundational assumptions. I’m of the camp that companies are free to make devices and we are free to buy or not buy them. If we don’t like how they operate, we buy a competitor who does what we want. Hopefully enough people agree with us that a competitor will cater to us, or we can start our own. I know that some people start from a different set of assumptions that assumes we can just force the seller to sell us what we want. I don’t know that we can bridge that divide easily, but I wish you well. Thanks for the back and forth.
> If we don’t like how they operate, we buy a competitor who does what we want.
I agree that there are some other "free market solutions" that could work.
The example that I gave, which would absolutely be a free market solution, would be if Fortnite, and other major companies, like facebook, banded together to build easy to use jailbreaking software, and to use their companies to try and convince a large critical mass of people to jailbreak their phone.
That could work. But I am worried about the government intervention, that Apple would try to engage in, to stop this free market solution, via lawsuits that they would inevitably use against this free market answer.
But lots of companies, acting together, to help everyone jailbreak their phone, so that, hopely half, or a large amount of users, now are in a position where they can easily install other app stores, would be a reasonably free market way of solving all of this.
When there is enough critical mass of users doing this, those major companies could then remove/ban their app from the Apple app store, so that basically everyone else has to follow along as well, and then basically everyone is outside of Apple's control.
If they would band together, why not just make a new phone? Going after jail breaking apple devices would be fruitless since apple could release a new firmware to block your OS. I wish they wouldn’t, but the market solution would be for people to stop buying apple devices.
> If they would band together, why not just make a new phone?
Because it is much easier to write jailbreaking software, than it is to build an entirely new phone.
> since apple could release a new firmware to block your OS
People have been jailbreaking phones for years. That is always the game of cat and mouse. And people have continue to get around it, even though they don't have large amount of resources, like big companies would.
But, furthermore, if there is a large enough userbase, that is jailbreaking their phone, then it would cause Apple a large amount of economic damage, if they decide to screw over this critical mass of users.
If 30% of Apple's users, would get their phone bricked after an Apple update, then Apple would probably be cautious about doing that.
But I guess it is hypothetically possible that Apple would be willing to brick 30% of their customers phones (if that was the critical mass). That would certainly hurt their customer friendly image though, and it would cause Apple billions of dollars in damages.
> but the market solution would be for people
Putting lots of resources into jailbreaking phones, and convincing a lot of users to do it, such that it would cause Apple a lot of damage, if they stopped it, is also a free market solution.
That is a free market solution that is much easier to do, than building a new phone.
The contract that would be enforced by aggressive government regulation?
Yeah no. I thought you did not like government regulation, and supported people's ability to do what they want with things that they own? And in this case, such a contract, is enforced by government regulation, and we should work to invalidate it, if it prevents people from doing what they want with the phone that they bought.
Thats the point. I support the free market solution here, and apparently you want to use the government, to take away people's ability to do what they want, with their own phone, if you think that such a contract should prevent this.
I want to get rid of Apple's ability to use the government, to stop people from doing what they want with their own phone. The government regulations that prevent people from doing this is the problem.
If I walk in to Best Buy and get an iPhone, I'm not signing any contract with Apple. All I'm agreeing to is "I give Best Buy money, and Best Buy gives me this physical product." The reason we're upset with Apple is that they're imposing terms on us as if we signed a contract with them, but we didn't.
Right. Then you boot it up and have to agree to a bunch of stuff to use iOS. You can bail at that point and not use the device. Or you can know that you’ll have to agree to it later, and that the device is quite difficult to put another OS on, and just not purchase it. Get a librephone or Android or …
You may say that you bought the phone and so you can do with it what you want —- ok. Hack/root it to run another OS. It’s your device in that sense. But they are under no obligation (nor should be forced to be) to make it easy.
I agree with you that I wish they would make it easy, but alas. Buy a librephone.
Ok, but then don't go around pretending like you are someone who opposes government intervention.
Instead, it is other people, who want to get the government out of our phones, and not have the coercive, government force, under threat of violence, preventing us from doing things with phones that we purchased.
If you want to say that you support the government, using force and coercion, and government intervention, into people's lives, fine. But that is your position. And it is extremely anti-free market.
But, if your position, is that you support this government coercion, then I am not sure why you would get upset about other forms for laws, and government coercion, given that you want the government to forcibly prevent other people from doing things with phones.
Because you absolutely support government coercion, that would be government force on people, who are doing things with phones that they own.
> preventing us from doing things with phones that we purchased.
Nobody is preventing you. Who is preventing you? There’s no government action here. You buy the phone or you buy a librephone. Let’s leave the government out altogether.
You’re the one pushing for some kind of regulation against free agents interacting. No need to contact the federals on this.
You were advocating in favor of using the government to "enforce a contract" or whatever, on people doing what they want with the phone that they own.
> You buy the phone or you buy a librephone.
And if someone buys an iPhone they should have the full right to do whatever they want with it, and the government should absolutely not be preventing people from doing so.
> Let’s leave the government out altogether.
Yes, lets ensure that the government never prevents anyone from doing what they want with the phone that they purchased.
So if you take back your previous statements, and instead agree with me that the government should not prevent people from doing what they want with their phone, then cool.
But otherwise, if you disagree, then you would be the one advocating in favor of using government coercion here against people.
So it sounds like you don’t agree with contract law. that if you make an agreement with someone or something that you are bound to keep your word. You somehow think that because you agreed to something voluntarily that the government should then act and impose new terms on the parties.
That’s one reason why we are regulation drunk in this country. Instead if having a simple rule that says you live up to contracts that you agree to, now we have to have a million rules for exceptions to contracts people sign.
I do t thing we can get anywhere if you don’t agree with contract law.
I’m not sure what standard you are appealing to? Who cares if Apple only lets whatever they want on their own store? It’s their store. I hope Microsoft or Amazon would get back in the phone game and allow alternate stores.
But once you buy a phone from them, it's your phone, not theirs. You shouldn't have to use their store exclusively on your phone, but since you do, it should be subject to way stricter rules regarding anticompetitiveness and unfairness than non-exclusive stores that other platforms have.
Moreover, once AWS has sold storage, their duty isn't over. They must provide the compute and traffic. That's why they deserve more rent than Apple.
When someone uses an app downloaded from the App Store, the compute is provided by the device owned and paid for by the user. Apple does not own it or maintain it anymore.
And the compute is either completely provided by the device or is shared by the app vendor.
Apple does not give anything in this scenario. They only take.
I agree it is your phone, you should be able to put whatever OS you want on it if you are unhappy with the default. But don’t take the extreme position of forcing apple through law to write software the way you want. You have other options, buy an Android device.
He's saying the App Store should be held to a different standard because it is the ONLY store for iPhones. That isn't true for the Epic store - you can just install one of the other stores, or purchase from a different method.
Everyone should be held to the same standard of respecting private property. You know what you are getting into when going onto apples store; if you don’t like it then encourage all your clients to use Android.
Respecting private property? Whose property is an iPhone? Apple's or the end user's? Whose (intellectual) property is the Epic Store? Apple's or Epic's? Apple wants to use the only thing that's theirs in the equation (the App Store) to restrict an interaction between both of the other things that aren't theirs.
Yea, their OS, their store, their software stack. Sure, you own the device, so put whatever OS you want on it. But you can’t force Apple to write their OS however you want except by market forces. Well, you could try using extreme tactics like government regulation, but that’s a severe overreach and uncalled for just because you don’t like the way apple writes their software.
Didn’t realize, I wish they wouldn’t. even more reason to not buy Apple (I’m typing this on an iPhone :) )
I agree with you that I wish they would allow it. I agree that I should be able to put windows 10 on my iPhone. Thanks for the back and forth, and we may not be able to get past our starting assumptions about the nature of trade/commerce, but I still wouldn’t want to legally force apple to do anything. People should definitely make a big stink about it, though. Thanks for the back and forth, but I’ll leave it there.
Who cares how much they make? If you’re unhappy, go to Google or petition Microsoft or Amazon to get back in the game. I’d also like a provider that allows other app stores and has high quality like Apple — one of those companies should do it. But it’s ridiculous to force apple to do it when you could go elsewhere.
