> if a single-threaded C process provides better performance (let alone a parallel C implementation), what does it say?
It doesn't say much until you define what's most important to you. Is it more important that you can use Scala and get your code working more quickly or do you have more time to write and debug a C program and do you really need to do that for performance reasons? Does the code need to function as part of a larger Java/Scala or C application, etc. In other words, and as always, you need to pick to right tool for the job.
The JVM is very fast now days, in my work the issue of performance vs. C never comes up. Obviously there are still valid uses for C these days, but you can get very decent performance from the JVM and that often means you can finish your work faster.
It doesn't say much until you define what's most important to you. Is it more important that you can use Scala and get your code working more quickly or do you have more time to write and debug a C program and do you really need to do that for performance reasons? Does the code need to function as part of a larger Java/Scala or C application, etc. In other words, and as always, you need to pick to right tool for the job.
The JVM is very fast now days, in my work the issue of performance vs. C never comes up. Obviously there are still valid uses for C these days, but you can get very decent performance from the JVM and that often means you can finish your work faster.