Project Valhalla vs. Ray Tracer: Will it Go Faster?

2023/07/03

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In this article, the author explores the potential of Project Valhalla, a project aimed at improving the performance of Java, by comparing it to a toy ray tracer implemented in Clojure. The author initially noticed that the computational work involved in the ray tracer heavily relied on performing math operations with geometric vectors, which are allocated on the heap and then garbage-collected by the JVM. This led the author to wonder if Project Valhalla could optimize the performance of these operations.

The article explains that in the current version of Java, each object has an identity, which serves as a way to distinguish between different objects. However, the author emphasizes that what developers are often more interested in are the practical implications of having an identity.

To showcase the potential of Project Valhalla, the author conducted experiments and shares the results. By leveraging the insights gained from these experiments, developers can gain a better understanding of the performance improvements that Project Valhalla can bring to their Java applications.

Overall, this article provides valuable insights into the ongoing efforts to optimize Java's performance and highlights the potential benefits that Project Valhalla can offer to developers.