Why does swing draw simple component twice?

Question

Here is simple example of drawing an oval.

public class SwingPainter extends JFrame{
    public SwingPainter() {
        super("Swing Painter");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        getContentPane().add(new MySwingComponent());

        setSize(200, 200);
        setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new SwingPainter();
    }

    class MySwingComponent extends JComponent {

         public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            System.out.println("paintComponent");
            super.paintComponent(g);
            g.setColor(Color.red);
            g.fillOval(10, 10, 50, 50);
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintBorder(Graphics g) {
            System.out.println("Paint border");
            super.paintBorder(g);
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintChildren(Graphics g) {
            System.out.println("Paint children");
            super.paintChildren(g);
        }
    }
}

But in debug mode or adding some info to console before drawing (as in example), you can see that swing draws components twice.

paintComponent

Paint border

Paint children

paintComponent

Paint border

Paint children

I cannot understand why it happens, but I think it can affect performance in a difficult GUI.

Answer 1

The article Painting in AWT and Swing: Additional Paint Properties: Opacity suggests why: "The opaque property allows Swing's paint system to detect whether a repaint request on a particular component will require the additional repainting of underlying ancestors or not." Because you extend JComponent, the opaque property is false by default, and optimization is not possible. Set the property true to see the difference, as well as the artifact from not honoring the property. Related examples may be found here and here.