whatever:

Anonymous asked: can you explain to some degree why SPARC chips run java so well? Are they optimized for java bytecode? Is java bytecode cross-compiled to them or something? Seems like a lot of the info on this is behind paywalls but you seem to have some knowledge of the topic.

excellent question

you probably already know that java was initially developed by sun microsystems who also developed the SPARChitecture. SPARC came about almost a decade before java, but SPARC didn’t follow the path x86 did with super obsessive backwards compatibility. in the 80s, sun (a relatively new company) cut their teeth on VLSI & processor design with their 32-bit SPARC machines that seemed to all disappear around 1995 (if you find one i’ll pay you top dollar)

anyways, in the early 90s (in fact, within weeks of my birth) sun released their 64 bit SPARC machines that radically differed from their previous design. this was a couple of years after goosehead mccoy began modeling what was to become the java programming language which was pretty quickly understood internally as the most effective tool in draining money out of huge bureaucracies

java is a horrible language but it set out to solve a very real problem plaguing the world of software at the time in the same way you can solve a civil dispute over a car accident by executing both parties. think back to when you first used computers and constantly dealt with problems because certain software was “windows only” or “mac only” and macs ran powerpc chips that very effectively (and intentionally) locked software to one platform or the other. now imagine that same situation except with even more numerous and ambiguous unreliable hardware running windows, osx, macOS, OS/2, CP/M, unixware/aix/hpux, sunOS, solaris, 4.4bsd, and probably about eight more i’m forgetting (but not linux, suck it nerds). it was a nightmare. if you could get your code to run on anything but your own specific brand and model # of computer you were lucky. java wanted to change this

so java and SPARC development coincided sort of like two brothers where one is the star of the football team and goes on to be elected president and the other sells dimebags to middle schoolers for $50 and smokes cigarette butts he finds in the gutter. SPARC is actually a marvelously well designed ISA. it falls into a very select and probably forever-closed category of computers titled “computers for adults that we designed properly”

i’ve talked about why i hate x86 and the most poignant example comes from asking someone to write a simple assembly subroutine in something dead simple like MIPS and then replicate it in x86. not even the fucking textual syntax of the assembly makes any sense and even if it did you’d still be totally fucking lost as to how to do anything properly given how expansive it is and how inconsistent and full-of-tricks it is due to near zealot-like commitment intel has to backwards compatibility. go back a few pages and read about how my lab workstation, a brand spanking new machine with a state-of-the-art intel pisslake xeon 16-core monster, initially boots into 16-bit mode with zero memory protection so that fucking DOS will still work properly on it

SPARC may be your only hope to know a sane ISA. SPARC was made for serious adults doing serious science shit or communicating with literally twelve billion dollar GPS satellites in realtime or whatever. 64 bit machines that weren’t one-off customs or like, fucking crays were a big deal in 1995

the point i’m needlessly beleaguering here is that the fact java works so well on SPARC machines is partly and esoterically related to how well SPARC chips are designed in the first place. another not-immediately-related way is that obviously the initial work developing java and the JVM was done on sun’s own SPARC machines

to be quite honest to you i do not know if there is immediately-related reasons as to why java bytecode runs well on SPARC machines, but i’d be happy to answer that question for you for $35

i’ll spend the rest of this post grandstanding about sun. their history would make you think that the aztecs were on to something worshiping the sun, a growing compulsion of mine. my experience with their machines has to do with a 72lb steel box that requires two separate power cables and warms my shithole under-the-table studio apartment better than my space heater

note i have since purchased a mattress if only to hush the cascade of delicate pansies that fill up my inbox whenever this image is posted

what really cemented the quality of SPARC machines was how well the software coupled with it along with, well, the quality of the software itself. when even the thought of good system programming is already bizarre today, the combination of it + hardware is pretty amazing. not as good as my lisp machine but you already know about that

folks i work with (read: constantly pester) who write solely kernel code for bizarre architectures and eat machine code for breakfast are usually the most anti-enterprise individuals you’ll ever come across. it’s usually a combination of how astoundingly bad enterprise code is along with their bullshit pinko philosophies and even they admit to how excellent sunOS and early solaris was before solaris became basically linux

the GUI is above-average (still 99th percentile for GUIs) and has this ineffable resonating quality of being a tool used for work by a professional and not one of two half-work half-video-games-and-pornography operating systems that most are used to

in 2010, sun was bought out by oracle. oracle is a universally reviled company that even our friend goosehead mccoy has spoken out against, publicly, which is kind of a huge deal in this billion dollar industry. he has unfortunately since gone on to work at google which seems to happen to every good programmer that doesn’t develop a vitamin D deficiency from never ascending from their cave or using their talents for anything that could benefit anyone except those that meet their incredibly demanding deluded criteria. anyway, i’d bet the interview process for oracle managers involves dispatching a weeping child with a rusty boat knife to prove that you fit well with their corporate culture and philosophy. i’m pretty sure they day oracle bought out sun’s stock they axed opensolaris because they see open source people as vermin (we are to be fair)

i wish i could have answered your question and hope all this nonsense i have written at least entertains. goodnight