Thomas Wuerthinger on GraalVM and Optimizing Java With Ahead-of-Time Compilation

The promise of Java has always been, “write once, run anywhere.” This was enabled through just-in-time compilation, which allowed developers to target a platform at compilation. But, this flexibility has given rise to comments like, “Java is slow.” What if you could compile Java to Native Code? On this podcast, we’re talking to Thomas Wuerthinger, a senior research director at Oracle Labs. Leading programming language implementation teams for Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and R. He is the architect of the Graal compiler and the Truffle self-optimizing runtime. Why listen to the podcast: - The GraalVM project was initially just a replacement for the JVM C2 just-in-time compiler, but has evolved to include support for multiple languages, as well as an ahead-of-time compiling mode. - Support for multiple languages can provide better performance for some languages, as well as making direct calls without inter-process communication. - With GraalVM’s AOT compilation, you can statically link system libraries, which allows you to run a static binary on a bare-metal Docker image, without even a Linux distribution. - The major benefits of AOT are minimized startup time, memory footprint, and packaging size. This can come with a trade-off in reduced maximum throughput and higher latency. - The GraalVM roadmap includes supporting additional platforms, such as Windows and mobile, as well as performance improvements for both the JIT and AOT compilers. More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2Y2hPk2 You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2Y2hPk2