GraalVM 21.2 Released With New Optimizations, Better Linux AArch64 Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GraalVM 21.2 Released With New Optimizations, Better Linux AArch64 Support

Oracle has published a new version of GraalVM, its open-source Java JVM/JDK implemented in Java that also supports other programming languages and execution modes. GraalVM continues to be quite an interesting effort given its various languages supported and interesting technical experiments/features in the name of greater Java performance and other innovative features...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GraalVM-21.2

[tildearrow]

Typo:

This SIMD vectorization feature isn't being enabled by default yet but can be activated with te "-Dgraal.VectorizeSIMD=true" option.

[bug77]

I used to watch this very closely. However, seeing the glacial pace the project moves, now it's just meh.

[uid313]

Why is GraalVM so interesting?

Microsoft have CLR and CIL.

[elatllat]

Why is GraalVM so interesting?

Microsoft have CLR and CIL.

Because it's open (even though it's not memory safe), Linux is the most popular OS.

Because it's Linux native, high level, and minimises runtime errors with static types etc (even though it's a memory hog), Java is the most popular enterprise app language.

Because Graal-native reduces memory and start time of Java it is one of the best options.

[uid313]

Because it's open (even though it's not memory safe), Linux is the most popular OS.

Because it's Linux native, high level, and minimises runtime errors with static types etc (even though it's a memory hog), Java is the most popular enterprise app language.

Because Graal-native reduces memory and start time of Java it is one of the best options.

Microsoft CLR and CIL is open too.
In my limited experience, I very much prefer .NET over Java.

Interestingly Microsoft have a build of OpenJDK.

[elatllat]

Microsoft CLR and CIL is open too.
In my limited experience, I very much prefer .NET over Java.

Interestingly Microsoft have a build of OpenJDK.

The Microsoft CLR and CIL ecosystem is not fully open, only parts of it.
And the main piece for Linux "Mono" is not even a Microsoft product; It's a partially implemented 3rd class citizen.

.NET was made 7 years after Java, and by a company with significantly more resources so it has a more polished ecosystem but much of it is tied to Windows.
Java has been evolving in that time and is even using Microsoft LSP for IDEs. I'm not aware of any ROI for switching to .NET, only that doing so is throwing 1st class support for Linux out the window.

Your preference is not really relevant to those making design decisions, and most good developers prefer an open ecosystem where PRs can be sent on anything, which is why Windows was/is 20 years behind on some things (multiple desktops, soft links, a COW file system let alone a non locking FS, updates that are online let alone not taking forever, drag and drop in AD)

Like just imagine 2 dev teams, one using .NET/Windows and another using Java/Linux. On review it it noted that the .NET server nodes in the cloud require more RAM and take hours to update costing millions of dollars more than Java/Linux team. Which team is going to be hired? Sure Dev time is more costly but Linux has better automation so they win there to.

While competition is good and Linux has many faults many just don't see any value in the Windows ecosystem.
Working with what you know gets things done and that's fine, I'm just letting you know why GraalVM is so interesting to some.

[Ironmask]

I wonder what the future for this project is in the face of WASM. If it will be used on top of WASM or if it's merely going to get prematurely killed if/when WASM for desktop becomes a popular deployment method.

The Microsoft CLR and CIL ecosystem is not fully open, only parts of it.
And the main piece for Linux "Mono" is not even a Microsoft product; It's a partially implemented 3rd class citizen.

.NET was made 7 years after Java, and by a company with significantly more resources so it has a more polished ecosystem but much of it is tied to Windows.
Java has been evolving in that time and is even using Microsoft LSP for IDEs. I'm not aware of any ROI for switching to .NET, only that doing so is throwing 1st class support for Linux out the window.

Your preference is not really relevant to those making design decisions, and most good developers prefer an open ecosystem where PRs can be sent on anything, which is why Windows was/is 20 years behind on some things (multiple desktops, soft links, a COW file system let alone a non locking FS, updates that are online let alone not taking forever, drag and drop in AD)

Like just imagine 2 dev teams, one using .NET/Windows and another using Java/Linux. On review it it noted that the .NET server nodes in the cloud require more RAM and take hours to update costing millions of dollars more than Java/Linux team. Which team is going to be hired? Sure Dev time is more costly but Linux has better automation so they win there to.

While competition is good and Linux has many faults many just don't see any value in the Windows ecosystem.
Working with what you know gets things done and that's fine, I'm just letting you know why GraalVM is so interesting to some.

.NET, BCL, Roslyn and OmniSharp (for VSCode) *is* fully open under an MIT license, on GitHub, where anyone can send in a pull request, and ported to Linux and macOS, it's not Mono. Also, MS bought Mono years ago, they're currently using it for Android development, but proper Linux .NET is the original .NET, .NET 5, originally .NET Core.
And .NET is used in plenty of places, StackOverflow is .NET. And of course MS uses .NET extensively. They wouldn't dogfood it if it wasn't useful, it's not like they originally made all their software in Visual Basic.
Additionally, the reason businesses would want to use Windows is because of it's resources and technical support. There's way more education courses for Windows and corporate support for the platform than Linux. I'm not saying it's a reason to prefer Windows, and plenty of businesses understand this but prefer to use Linux anyway because they can train their own teams and rely on smaller businesses for support, but it's a big reason you're overlooking. If you think a business is going to care about a little bit of RAM over employee training, you're out of your mind.
I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's about 6-7 years out of date now. I'm guessing you're being willfully ignorant because you hate MS for political reasons instead of their technical merits, no different from an SJW. You should do some soul searching and see how this behavior makes you look childish.

[krzyzowiec]

Why is GraalVM so interesting?

Microsoft have CLR and CIL.

Why would people who rely on the JVM be interested in C#? GraalVM is interesting because it departs from the JVM by being written in Java rather than C++, which opens it up to easier modification and possible performance improvements in the future. It also supports a form of native compilation that makes Java more suitable in resource constrained environments, or where fast startup is a priority.

There's nothing wrong with Microsoft's technology, but it pretty much limits you to C#. On the JVM you can run Java, but also Kotlin, Clojure, and Scala. If you are in that ecosystem, there is no benefit to using C#.

[Ironmask]

Why would people who rely on the JVM be interested in C#? GraalVM is interesting because it departs from the JVM by being written in Java rather than C++, which opens it up to easier modification and possible performance improvements in the future. It also supports a form of native compilation that makes Java more suitable in resource constrained environments, or where fast startup is a priority.

There's nothing wrong with Microsoft's technology, but it pretty much limits you to C#. On the JVM you can run Java, but also Kotlin, Clojure, and Scala. If you are in that ecosystem, there is no benefit to using C#.

It is funny how the CLR was intentionally made to support multiple languages (like Graal) whereas the JVM was specifically made for Java. CLR also has F#, but nobody uses it for anything else, despite there existing plenty of other languages for it.
Ironically, I think C# being so good is what sort of killed the opportunities of the CLR off as a multi-language platform. Just like JavaScript, Java is such a horrible language that it forced people to make different languages to compensate for it's shortcomings (since people were forced to use it from an extensive marketing campaign). You don't really see the same thing in .NET despite it's prevalence.