Programming computer

[Nandou]

Hello, I'm computer engineering student and I'm developping using Eclipse on many platforms, I'm having some issue with Eclipse in terms of speed. I know it's a Java application and that it's very heavy but I'm looking to buy a desktop computer to make it faster while I program and run some applicative servers.

My question here is: should I invest in a workstation or it does not worth the money and any modern processors (4threads+) would do the job?

 

[Pyroflea]

I haven't ever had any issues with Eclipse (not that I used it much mind you). It shouldn't really be putting any toll on your computer, it's not really meant to be a heavy application.

What are your current specs?

 

[Nandou]

It's a MacBook pro 5,3
2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067MHz DDR3
Hitachi 500GB 5400rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB

I moved back from win7 to OSX because the performance on win7 were too poor.
(Actually I think it's worse on OSX but at least that piece of crap is not overheating!)

 

[Zenthar]

What version/edition of Eclipse are you using? With many plugins, yes Eclipse can become slow to start, but the problem might actually be the slow hard drive. I have a similar CPU at work and at home, but my home PC has an SSD and at work I have a 5400RPM "slow" drive and the Eclipse start time is significantly different, 3-4 times faster at home.

 

[Nandou]

I'm using many framework for java such as strut, spring, ibatis, gwt just to name a few.
GWT is specially slow. I'm using eclipse 3.6 with the GWT tools.

 

[Zenthar]

Are all Java applications slow or only Eclipse? Are you using the Eclipse edition for JavaEE? If so I know it has quite a few plugins that can take some time to load.

 

[Nandou]

It's okay when I compile and publish the the applicative server but when debugging and using the "hot code swapping" everything is really slow (we are talking minutes here) also, I have tried the GWT designer and it's just unusable. I have both version of eclipse and I am using eclipse classic when working on GWT. The application I an developping is not very hard on the logic but there is a lot of visual interfaces and database queries. I guess a faster harddrive or a sad could fix most of my problems but I am planning to buy a desktop in a really near future, I am just wondering if I should go for a few threads with lot of power or many less powerfull threads.

 

[Zenthar]

When you speak of threads, you mean literal programming threads or you are talking about CPU cores? One thing you could do to find the bottleneck it to check the I/O wait when you start the application. If it rises a lot, then yes it means your CPU is held back by the HDD.

 

[Nandou]

I mean CPU threads. I'll check that out but it's always slow even when the application is in memory

 

[Zenthar]

I don't know much about GWT, but if it's an AJAX based framework then it could be doing more I/O than you think. It could be networking I/O, but this is I/O non-the less.

 

[Nandou]

That's very true, maybe it's time to get that ssd 😉 GWT is indeed based on Ajax.

 

[Zenthar]

Even without an SSD, just a regular modern 7200RPM HDD could make quite a difference. The problem is that it can drain a battery much faster for a laptop.

 

[dEAne]

The specs you gave is not really an issue maybe your hard disk is quite full.

 

[redinsanemetroid]

The specs you have right now is really sufficient for a dev environment. With that said, I've switched to a SSD drive recently (Intel X25M second gen) and it has improved startup/load times of eclipse, netbeans, and microsoft visual studio 2010 express by a vast amount.

 

[Nandou]

Alright, I will try with a new hard drive or just wait for a month till I get my desktop! Thank you!

 

[Nandou]

Best answer selected by Nandou.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey