What is JVM -server parameter?

Question

I saw Java -server in http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ for programming language benchmark. I know that -server is a parameter for running JVM. I want to know:

When

Answer 1

It just selects the "Server Hotspot VM". See documentation (Solaris/Linux) for java.

According to Wikipedia:

Sun's JRE features 2 virtual machines, one called Client and the other Server. The Client version is tuned for quick loading. It makes use of interpretation, compiling only often-run methods. The Server version loads more slowly, putting more effort into producing highly optimized JIT compilations, that yield higher performance.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotSpot