17 replies to this topic

[Jalaska13]

I'm taking a high school programming class, and I don't want to lug around a 15-inch laptop, so I'm thinking of buying a netbook instead. My one concern, however, is that its 1.6 GHz processor might be prohibitively slow for compiling Java. Is this true, or would I be able to get away with it, considering it's a high school class, and thus won't be getting too advanced?

[abzero]

1.6 would be fine for compiling, depends if your using a very heavy IDE. I used to compile java on a 300Mhz Pentium II, but it couldn't run any of the java ide's, it was manual compilation.

[Jalaska13]

I'd like to use an IDE (because I'm sure my teacher won't mind if we don't use the specific compiler he suggests, so if the one he suggests is just a raw compiler, I'll probably find a different one). That said, I really wasn't thinking that the IDE functionality would be the limiting factor. I'd figured that the compiler would require more processing speed than IDE functions. Either way, though, it sounds like a 1.6 GHz processor will work fine. Thanks for your help!

[wim DC]

Most programs you compile for school will probably barely touch the cpu ^_^

[Alexander]

For Eclipse, I've read on a P350 / Win '98 / 192 MBs RAM, 6 Projects/over 2000 class files only takes 3-4 minutes to start up then is usable. I would say a netbook will suffice for your Java programming class, oxano is right about you not requiring anything other than simple algorithms really.

[Jalaska13]

Yeah, I guess that's true. Thanks to all for your advice!

[WingedPanther]

I've compiled programs on a netbook. The only time I had to wait was compiling large libraries.

[isuru]

I only have 1.60GHz in my PC. But I learned java se and looking forward to web application development with GWT(java). But when it comes to compile using GWT compiler it takes some minutes, but not to worry. You can learn and develop apps with netbook. If you like you can install TuneUp Utilities and Enable Turbo mode. That gives you pretty fast compiling.

[abzero]

I find that some of the heavy weight gui's can be slow on very old hardware. Eclispse & Netbeans were ok if you removed the constant compile feature. But then I was short on processing power and RAM. You can compile just fine on processors you can't buy anymore, so really 1.6 Ghz is fine.

(p.s. does anyone chuckle when I hear the phrase 'i've only got 1.6Ghz?' I always remeber my first 386 25Mhz machine - which compared to some peoples first machine, must have been very speedy indeed)

[wim DC]

abzero said:

(p.s. does anyone chuckle when I hear the phrase 'i've only got 1.6Ghz?' I always remeber my first 386 25Mhz machine - which compared to some peoples first machine, must have been very speedy indeed)

Since they went from single core to dual etc i totally lost track of what's good or not. Single was simple: higher is better. But then it all started dropping with dual and quad and i'm lost ^_^
My first pc had 450Mhz and 512MB ram (or was it 256?) allready :)

[Minor]

I think you should use the GNU Compiler for the Java Programming Language. It can compile: Java source code directly to native machine code, Java source code to Java bytecode (class files), and Java bytecode to native machine code. Which will be faster

Edited by WingedPanther, 20 August 2010 - 03:58 PM.
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[Jalaska13]

Do you guys think I should instal Linux on it? (GNU can run on windows too, right?)