Java performance Issues (IV) - Hardware interfacing

31 January 2008

When it comes to lower level programming C or even C++ is sometimes considered better than Java. When Java was designed, the main focus was on portability and security, which was lagging in the popular languages such as C, C++ etc. As in Java main emphasis is on portability and security, program can not directly access hardware or a peripheral device such as a scanner, digital camera, audio recorder, video capture, or virtually any hardware that requires direct memory space control. This obviously makes programming which requires these devices difficult in Java. However, it is not impossible to communicate and include programming for these devices in Java.

Interfacing with native code

Sometimes a software application can not be written and developed entirely in Java, for example when Java’s default class library does not support certain operating system and/or hardware specific features. In such a situation, the Java Native Interface (JNI) is very useful.

However, using Java Native Interface (JNI) is not full proof and has some limitations of its own. These limitations are machine dependency, potential deadlock situations, memory allocation leaks, and inconsistent or not so reilable application performance. Further as different languages or programming techniques are used code becomes complex and difficult to maintain. However, due to the very nature of problem (operating system and/or hardware, programming languages) all these issues are common with any other programming language as well.

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