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Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

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Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#71

Post by chrisseaton »

mike_hearn wrote: post #64
bluejekyll wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not only be benevolence though. The JVM and Graal are not the only game in town anymore. Webassembly is growing in various areas, clienside, edge, backend. WASM fills much of the same needs as Graal, and then some since it’s embedded in every major browser. This move is good for Graal, as it will help it compete, but there’s still a big question in my mind at least about if Graal is going to be able to compete…

WASM isn't really a replacement for JVM bytecode. It's not like you can take a random JAR and convert it to WASM. Last I checked, WASM doesn't even support GCd languages at all, and at any rate the whole insight that makes GraalVM unique and a big deal is that universal bytecodes are a poor choice for making fast polyglot VMs. The JVM world was doing that long before WASM was even a twinkle in Google's eye, with invo…

Doesn't GraalVM have both a WASM frontend and backend?

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#72

Post by mike_hearn »

nvrspyx wrote: post #70
mike_hearn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't any way to spin it negatively. The generalized dislike of Oracle you have seen really comes from a couple of different aspects, neither of which are relevant to this specific announcement: 1. License audits suck. 2. The Google lawsuit (about matters resolved long ago and which don't apply to anyone except Google, really). A lot of ill will comes from people whose companies have been audited. The process i…

Thank you for the very detailed response. I recognize that my impression of Oracle was certainly unfair due to my lack of knowledge and experience with them. I also recognize that it was both selfish and ignorant of me to ask for someone to spin this negatively. My comment was in good faith, but I see now that my intention doesn't really change that it was encouraging an unjust characterization of this announcement a…

You're welcome and I don't think you should feel bad, your post seemed OK to me.

This particular announcement isn't even meant to generate goodwill really, although I can see why it's interpreted that way. It's not like there's a new open source release coming. It's just resolving some duplication issues in the way these already open source projects are being developed by Oracle "donating" from one arm to the other :) The goodwill should instead come from the decade+ funding of this very advanced and large research project, which is teaching the world a lot about fundamental computer science (complete with large set of academic papers), and for which almost all the core cleverness is given away under liberal licenses.

Be aware that they do have a commercial offering built on top of Graal, the enterprise edition. It makes programs go faster, and has a few other useful features. But there's nothing nefarious about that of course.

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#73

Post by mike_hearn »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #69
mike_hearn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WASM isn't really a replacement for JVM bytecode. It's not like you can take a random JAR and convert it to WASM. Last I checked, WASM doesn't even support GCd languages at all, and at any rate the whole insight that makes GraalVM unique and a big deal is that universal bytecodes are a poor choice for making fast polyglot VMs. The JVM world was doing that long before WASM was even a twinkle in Google's eye, with invo…

>> It's not like you can take a random JAR and convert it to WASM. Maybe you can: "TeaVM is an ahead-of-time compiler for Java bytecode that emits JavaScript and WebAssembly that runs in a browser. Its close relative is the well-known GWT. The main difference is that TeaVM does not require source code, only compiled class files. Moreover, the source code is not required to be Java, so TeaVM successfully compiles Kotl…

I've used TeaVM in a past project, to compile some Java to JS. It's very cool tech. Unfortunately I heard that the team ripped out the TeaVM after I left. That's understandable - I had to fix some bugs and missing pieces in TeaVM as part of that project, and I think a lot of codebases would face the same issue, but compiler hacking isn't everyone's, um, cup of tea. It was a great way to get a lot done in the two weeks I had available though.

I should have clarified. Yes, you can probably do a native-image style "compile an app+embedded JVM to wasm" by pretending V8 is a CPU. There are programs that do that sort of thing, I think Leaning Technologies makes one. That wouldn't be of use in any existing Java project though. The only reason you'd ever want to do that is because browsers offer nothing else, even though they could and at that point why not compile to JS, at least that way your GC isn't being interpreted too. If you're not constrained by the WHATWG's decisions though it doesn't offer anything.

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#74

Post by pron »

Thaxll wrote: post #3
pulse7 wrote: post #2

Maybe we will soon see the Java Virtual Machine implemented wholly in (a subset of) Java...

It's a good point, after so long why the JVM is not written in Java actually? For example the Go runtime and I think C# as well are written in their respective language. https://github.com/golang/go/tree/master/src/runtime https://github.com/dotnet/runtime

The Java runtime contains ~8MLOC; of them, about 1.5M are C++ (and Assembly generated by a C++ DSL), and more and more of the runtime is being written in Java (e.g. the virtual thread scheduler is written in Java). The two main pieces that aren't are the bytecode interpreter, the JITs, and the GCs (although the Graal JIT is written in Java). Interestingly, the more latency-critical stuff is written in Java (the JITs and GCs work mostly in the background nowadays, and the interpreter is used only at startup and on deoptimisation slow-paths).

Some of the reason is historical, and some has to do with warmup. Project Leyden and Graal's Native Image will help compile more Java AOT, allowing even more of the runtime to gradually be written in Java. It will take some time as it's not a top priority: it won't immediately deliver user-facing functionality, and most of the work on the JDK is already done in Java code anyway.

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#75

Post by grashalm »

chrisseaton wrote: post #71
mike_hearn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WASM isn't really a replacement for JVM bytecode. It's not like you can take a random JAR and convert it to WASM. Last I checked, WASM doesn't even support GCd languages at all, and at any rate the whole insight that makes GraalVM unique and a big deal is that universal bytecodes are a poor choice for making fast polyglot VMs. The JVM world was doing that long before WASM was even a twinkle in Google's eye, with invo…

Doesn't GraalVM have both a WASM frontend and backend?

No, there is only a frontend. There is a JavaScript backend though. I hope the GC proposal for WASM ultimately goes through to enable a backend in WASM too.

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#76

Post by mike_hearn »

bitcharmer wrote: post #28
maxloh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java isn't as performant as C++. BTW, how do you implement a garbage collector with a garbage-collected language?

Java often is as fast as cpp, sometimes faster. JIT gives it a huge advantage and c2 is pretty much state of the art these days.

Technically, GraalVM Enterprise Edition is state of the art. It's similar to C2 for Java code, but for compiling other languages EE smokes C2.

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#77

Post by bitcharmer »

anthk wrote: post #67
bitcharmer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java often is as fast as cpp, sometimes faster. JIT gives it a huge advantage and c2 is pretty much state of the art these days.

No. Compare SweetHome 3D to any similar tool written in C++.

Providing a single sample of random software as the ultimate rebuttal to my claim speaks more about your understanding of how performance comparisons of compilers and runtimes are made than about Java itself.

My turn: NASDAQ moved from cpp to Java quite a few years ago. Do you think you know something they don't?

Re: Oracle Contributing GraalVM Community Edition Java Code to OpenJDK

#78

Post by chrisseaton »

grashalm wrote: post #75
chrisseaton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't GraalVM have both a WASM frontend and backend?

No, there is only a frontend. There is a JavaScript backend though. I hope the GC proposal for WASM ultimately goes through to enable a backend in WASM too.

Maybe I saw a demo round-tripping through LLVM then.
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