Question 1

How does Drip compare to Nailgun for speeding up JVM startups?

Accepted Answer

Drip avoids the dirty state issues of Nailgun's persistent JVM by keeping fresh JVMs in reserve and discarding them after use, making it more reliable for iterative development. However, Nailgun might offer slightly faster connections for identical requests, at the cost of potential state corruption.

Question 2

How to set up Drip with a Clojure REPL for faster startup?

Accepted Answer

Install Drip via curl or Homebrew, then run `drip -cp clojure.jar clojure.main`; the first start is slow, but subsequent ones connect quickly. Use DRIP_SHUTDOWN to set a timeout and DRIP_INIT to precompile code for even better performance.

Question 3

Does Drip work on Windows operating systems?

Accepted Answer

Drip requires bash, so it's primarily designed for Unix-like systems like Linux and macOS. On Windows, you'll need to use WSL or a similar compatibility layer, as native support is not provided out of the box.

Question 4

What are the real-world performance gains when using Drip?

Accepted Answer

Drip can reduce JVM startup times from several seconds to milliseconds for repeated commands with the same options, such as in REPLs or short-lived scripts. The benefit scales with how often you restart the JVM with consistent arguments.

Question 5

How can I pre-initialize classes with Drip to speed up specific tasks?

Accepted Answer

Set the DRIP_INIT and DRIP_INIT_CLASS environment variables to run custom initialization code at JVM startup. For example, in Clojure, you can require namespaces to precompile them, reducing compilation overhead during runtime execution.

Question 6

Is Drip compatible with JVM languages like Java, Scala, and Kotlin?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Drip is language-agnostic and works with any JVM-based language because it acts as a drop-in replacement for the `java` command, handling standard arguments like classpaths and system properties seamlessly.

Question 7

What happens if Drip's reserved JVM times out or fails to connect?

Accepted Answer

If the DRIP_SHUTDOWN timeout expires or connection issues arise, Drip will spin up a new JVM on the next call, which may be slow. Ensure environment variables are consistent and check for changes in JVM options that affect the hash.

Drip

What is Drip?

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