Worth: 30 points, Late papers will be docked 5 points per 24 hour period.

Collaboration: Feel free to work together on this assignment, although each person should turn in his/her own copy.

Turn In: A printout of your C++ program, a printout of your Java program, and a few paragraphs answering the questions in Step 5. Pledge your paper.

Objective: Students will compare programs written in C++ and Java.

1. Create an algorithm for computing all of the primes from 1 to n. (The efficiency of the algorithm does not really matter.)

2. Implement your algorithm in both Java and C++. Describe the algorithm you are using in your comments. If you do not know Java, either work with a classmate or borrow someone’s book. There are also many resources online. Most of the syntax you will use in this program is the same in Java and in C++.

Your program should NOT display all of the computed primes. It should simply say, for example:

There are primes between 1 and 10.

DONE

3. Run both of these programs on eagle. When running the C++ program, use a.out and g++ as before. When translating the Java program, use javac as usual. However, when you are running the Java program type:

java -Djava.compiler=NONE classname

4. Choose three values for n. My algorithm was O(N²), and I choose n=500, n=1000, and n=5000. If your algorithm is more efficient, you may have to choose larger numbers to see any results.

Compare the time each of the three values of n takes to run with each program. (You should have six results.) When measuring the time, you don’t have to be extremely precise; using a watch with a second hand will suffice.

5. Write a few paragraphs answering each of the following questions:

What happened? Describe your results quantitatively here.

Why do you think this happened? Do some reading about Java vs. C++ and explain how the two differ. Form a hypothesis and support it.

What implications does this have? Describe at least one scenario where you think C++ should be used instead of Java and at least one scenario where you think Java should be used instead of C++.

Note: I am not looking for Shakespeare here, but I am expecting good, clear, college-level writing.

Extra Challenge: Try to create the most efficient algorithm in Step 1 that you can.