Optimizing Java

Optimizing Java is the book which every Java/JVM developer needs who are interested in learning about JVM internals.The concepts are explained in an intuitive manner and it goes to the inner details by explaining the concepts with examples and beautiful illustrations.A highly recommended book for a Java developer who wants to learn how the JVM works and to improve their Java application performance.

Optimizing Java is precise, information-rich and opinionated: in short, the perfect manual for anyone involved in managing java applications on a latency budget.The authors cheerfully blaze a path through wooly thinking, myth, folklore, and inherited bad practice. We’re left with clear, articulate explanations of the spectrum of issues affecting performance: allocation and GC; mechanical sympathy with the underlying platform; concurrency.There’s no verbiage; it’s a dense book. I chewed through it over a long weekend and now it’s on my desk for reference: I’m proud to say I own a signed copy.

Very good exploration of the different components of the JVM and how they affect the performance of Java applications.Recommended reading to anyone about to start optimizing their Java application.

I would give this book just 3 stars if there were others more or less up to date books on this subject but there is none :(. Also I would encourage authors of 2nd edition to elaborate basically on every chapter to add extensive notes on how to measure discussed matter in units of time :) That's said, to be practical book on performance needs to put all discussed matters on a time scale - it's just pointless to jump from millis or tens of millis (GC) to tens of nanos (branch missprediction). Surprisingly I didn't notice a single CDF graph while skimming through the pages :(. Therefore while I like table of content that book unfortunately doesn't develop systematic or 'holistic' approach to analyze application performance on jvm/os/hardware... I would probably drop off UI screenshots for commercial/outdated UIs in favor of sections on how to use perf, oracle developer studio etc.. and would help reader to develop gut sense about what GC/stop the world pauses would cost him, what is the cost of context switches/syscalls... how to drill down quickly to application performance bottleneck etc. Oreily finally printing in color wow :)

A brilliant book on java performance methodology, a must read for anyone interested in how to measure and improve the performance of their java applications.