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by pjmlp 3721 days ago
If you have the money, there are lots of commercial JVMs with compilers to native code.

There are quite a few open source ones, but they aren't as stable.

As always, Language != Implementation.
2 comments
thegenius2000 3721 days ago
Agreed, but remember that

  Language == Thought-space >= Implementation,
so you want to maximize your language's expressiveness.
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fosk 3721 days ago
Could you recommend any that you have had experience with?
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sievebrain 3721 days ago
RoboVM is one that compiles AOT ARM binaries, it's intended for the iPhone but it runs on MacOS too.

Avian is a JIT compiling JVM but one which is much smaller than HotSpot. It has a mode where it statically links your JAR into the binary itself, so you get a single self contained executable. With ProGuard and other optimisations like LZMA compression built in, such binaries can be remarkably small. Try their example:

https://readytalk.github.io/avian/#-xamples

It's a full blown GUI app that demonstrates the full range of widgets available, is cross platform, and yet is only about 1mb in size.

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bmaupin 3721 days ago
RoboVM can also compile to OS X and Linux:

Usually this means iOS and the ARM processor type but RoboVM is also capable of generating code for Mac OS X and Linux running on x86 CPUs. [0]

There are several forks of the latest open-source version of RoboVM. This one in particular is targeting desktop/server usage:

https://github.com/ashleyj/aura

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7579737

[0] http://docs.robovm.com/advanced-topics/compilation.html

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pjmlp 3721 days ago
I just know them from Java conferences.

Excelsior JET is the most well known one.

Oracle actually also supports AOT but only on embedded systems, with the commercial JDK.

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