Object oriented programs and a stack based virtual machine

Abstract

Dynamic quantitative measurements of Bytecode and Stack Frame Usage by Eiffel and Java Programs in the Java Virtual Machine are made. Two Eiffel programs are dynamically analysed while executing on the JVM, and the results compared with those from the Java Programs. The aim is to examine whether properties like instruction usage and stack frame size are properties of the Java programming language itself or are exhibited by Eiffel programs as well. Investigations analyse how the different assertion checking and optimizations possible using the SmallEiffel compiler affect bytecode and stack frame usage. Remarkably local_load, push_const and local_store instruction categories always account for very close to 40% of instructions executed, a property of the Java Virtual Machine for both the Java and Eiffel programming languages, irrespective of compiler or compiler optimizations used. Java programs executed 75% of their bytecodes within the API suggesting a way to improve the speed of Java programs would be to compile the API methods to native instructions and save these on disk in a standard format, cutting the time spent interpreting programs. Only 4.8% of instructions were in the API when Eiffel programs executed.