lecture

Squeezing Java Performance: When you need a little more

Java performance is generally considered to be on par with C and C++ these days. The JVM engineers have been working their magic and most people get the performance they desire. However, what happens when your application is still too slow? Is there anything you can do to make your application faster?

This talk will demonstrate a set of techniques to speed up a Java application. These techniques work, but as with any optimization, there is always a price to be paid. This talk will also counter-balance each optimization with the pitfalls of using the optimization. Even if you never use any of these techniques, this talk should help give you a better understanding of how the JVM optimizes Java applications.

Hands-on JRuby: Making Your Job Easy

Java developers have to wear a lot of hats these days. They have to manage builds, develop applications end-to-end with web and thick clients, write command-line scripts, build clean and simple tests, and be masters of all tiers. If only there were a way to make all those tasks simple. If only there were a way to make those tasks *fun*.

Enter JRuby!

JRuby makes your job easy! Build engineers can write or enhance builds with Ruby, never losing anything they depend on from Ant or Maven. Web developers can create apps in minutes with Rails, effortlessly taking advantage of the latest browser technologies like JQuery and HTML5. GUI developers can use one of the beautiful GUI frameworks for JRuby. Need to use native code? JRuby makes it trivially easy with a clean, simple DSL for binding native libraries. Need to write command-line scripts? You can easily crank them out with JRuby, taking advantage of both Java libraries and JRuby's system-level support. Even tests are easy to write and easy to run with JRuby. Come and learn how JRuby can make you a happier developer!