Why Java is running faster than C here?

Question

Inspired by this question,

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I came up with the following code:

$cat loop.c 
int main(          


        

Answer 1

My guess is that the JIT is optimizing away the empty loop.

Update: The Java Performance Tuning article Followup to Empty Loop Benchmark seems to support that, along with the other answers here that point out that the C code needs to also be optimized in order to make a meaningful comparison. Key quote:

Had I chosen to use the client mode 1.4.1 JVM (client is the default mode), the loops would not be optimized away. Had I chosen to use Microsoft's C++ compiler, the C version would take no time. Clearly, the choice of compiler is critical.