Oracle Formally Proposes That Java Adopt Ahead-of-Time Compilation (infoworld.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes InfoWorld: Java applications will get faster startup times thanks to a formal proposal to include ahead-of-time compilation in the platform. The draft Java Development Kit proposal, authored by Vladimir Kozlov, principal technical staff member at Oracle, is targeted for inclusion in Java 9, which is expected to be available next summer. "We would love to see this make it into JDK 9, but that will of course depend on the outcome of the OpenJDK process for this JDK Enhancement Proposal," said Georges Saab, vice president of software development in the Java platform group at Oracle, on Thursday. Ahead-of-time compilation has been a stated goal for Java 9 to address the issue of slow startup...

The proposal summary notes that Java classes would be compiled to native code prior to launching the virtual machine. The ultimate goal is to improve the startup time of small or large Java applications while having "at most" a limited impact on peak performance and minimizing changes to the user workflow.
Tests indicates some applications perform better while some actually perform worse, so it's being proposed as an opt-in feature where dissatisfied users "can just rebuild a new JDK without ahead-of-time libraries."

Comments

fantastic!

[Gravis Zero]

Oracle is just a misstep or two away from fully ruining Java. You couldn't ask for a better enemy.

Re:fantastic!

[gweihir]

Indeed. I hope they press on vigorously, because Java becoming unusable would be one of the best things that could happen to the IT world.

Re:Garbage

[binarylarry]

Or you could find developers that know what they're doing?

Re: A real Java compiler?

[lgw]

C++ just requires a thin C layer around the object oriented calls

Ah, yes, the "thin layer" that means you don't work directly with STL vectors, strings and maps, and, well, objects. Also, no exceptions. Bridging between an OOP language and an OOP language via C code means you need two awkward transitions between C-style code and OOP code.

I've done that far to many times. It can be quite constraining for your C++ code, depending on what kind of problem you're trying to solve. Also, that kind of marshaling is expensive. I've worked on plenty of Java codebases where 90% of CPU time was various serialization and deserialization code.

Well, better than nothing, but JNI was really intended to allow small chunks of C code to either do a bit of expensive calculation, or be a custom driver, or just wrap a system call that Java didn't, but in any case be a synchronous part of a Java function call. Much like C# with it's built-in marshaller, which punishes you for doing anything beyond wrapping system calls that the .NET runtime doesn't.