Small and Lightweight JVM for Scala

Question

I need to write a command tool and I would like to write it in Scala. The problem is the start-up time of JVM (Oracle JDK). I did not measure it but I am sure the JVM starts slower than Python, for example.

I have already asked a similar question and got answers about tools like Drip and Nailgun. However I would like to use just a JVM without any other tools.

Now I am looking for a small and lightweight JVM, which starts as fast as Python and can run Scala generated bytecode. Can I use an Android JVM for that purpose ?

runs as fast as python? you mean 50-500 times slower than C? Java/C# only run about half as fast as C; if speed is what you need, python is NOT where you should look — Electric Coffee, Jul 03 '14 at 07:12
The question is about start-up time. And Python is quite good at this. JVM however takes a couple of annoying seconds to get itself running. — Vilius Normantas, Jul 03 '14 at 07:52
Maybe you could run your program in the background and then just create GUI on user request? — Vilius Normantas, Jul 03 '14 at 07:55
@ViliusNormantas I need to write a command line tool without any GUI — Michael, Jul 03 '14 at 09:45

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 03 '14 at 07:55

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I have not used any of these, but I think you can run Scala on Avian, and also it should be possible to compile to native code using GCJ. I have just installed PDFtk which is compiled using gcj, and it's startup time is zero. You might want to use Proguard to shrink the size of your executable as well.

answered Jul 03 '14 at 07:55

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Thanks, Avian looks interesting. I hope it can run Scala generated code. – Michael Jul 03 '14 at 09:51
@Michael, yes, it can. See mentions in https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/avian – The Archetypal Paul Jul 03 '14 at 11:53
The link to Avian has died. Here is one that works: https://github.com/dicej/scala-avian – Max Murphy Jun 19 '16 at 02:11

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '14 at 20:09

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Would Drip (https://github.com/ninjudd/drip) be of value here perhaps?

answered Jul 03 '14 at 20:09

Michael Nash

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Small and Lightweight JVM for Scala

2 Answers2