The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition • Hacker News Board

GraalVM truly has the potential to become the universal, interoperable VM. It would be rational for e.g Julia folks to migrate to the graalVM ecosystem and cotntribute to it instead of living on their small code island. They would get an un inimaginable amount of benefits in the process.

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#5

Post by toomanyducks » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

The_rationalist wrote: post #4

GraalVM truly has the potential to become the universal, interoperable VM. It would be rational for e.g Julia folks to migrate to the graalVM ecosystem and cotntribute to it instead of living on their small code island. They would get an un inimaginable amount of benefits in the process.

How does a VM (JVM, GraalVM) compare to something like LLVM's IR? From your description as a ``universal, _interoperable_ VM`` it seems like they have some similar goals --- what are the reasons to write a compiler to a VM instead of with LLVM/IR?

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#6

Post by jxy » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

The_rationalist wrote: post #4

GraalVM truly has the potential to become the universal, interoperable VM. It would be rational for e.g Julia folks to migrate to the graalVM ecosystem and cotntribute to it instead of living on their small code island. They would get an un inimaginable amount of benefits in the process.

I'll believe it when I see the performance.

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#7

Post by mberning » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

My biggest gripe with java is developer productivity. It has gotten better but is still far behind interpreted languages like Python and Ruby. Class hot loading and things like that have made it better, but if you change a method signature or interface you have to stop your process, recompile, redeploy, and restart. For big codebases it’s brutal compared to the aforementioned languages and their attendant frameworks.

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#8

Post by dmitryminkovsky » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

cosmotic wrote: post #2

What does modern mean in this context?

Probably relative to things like J2EE as mentioned in the beginning, and as mentioned toward this middle:

> Non-blocking / reactive is one of the central demarcating elements of “modern” vs traditional.

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#9

Post by AlphaSite » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

toomanyducks wrote: post #5

The_rationalist wrote: post #4

GraalVM truly has the potential to become the universal, interoperable VM. It would be rational for e.g Julia folks to migrate to the graalVM ecosystem and cotntribute to it instead of living on their small code island. They would get an un inimaginable amount of benefits in the process.

How does a VM (JVM, GraalVM) compare to something like LLVM's IR? From your description as a ``universal, _interoperable_ VM`` it seems like they have some similar goals --- what are the reasons to write a compiler to a VM instead of with LLVM/IR?

I don’t think LLVM IR is really interoperable, is it?

Re: The Modern Java Platform – 2021 Edition

#10

Post by hello_moto » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

mberning wrote: post #7

My biggest gripe with java is developer productivity. It has gotten better but is still far behind interpreted languages like Python and Ruby. Class hot loading and things like that have made it better, but if you change a method signature or interface you have to stop your process, recompile, redeploy, and restart. For big codebases it’s brutal compared to the aforementioned languages and their attendant frameworks.

In big codebases, people don't change Interface (that's a contract btw) that often. They would do the proper "migration" by offering path to the new contract/api.

If you have huge codebase in Python or Ruby, you'll rip your hair more often because it's riskier to make changes (dynamic language) according to your use-case :).