[cleverfoo]

Well, assuming that by "statically linking" you mean in the c sense, that's exactly what GraalVM native image does today, it statically analyzes the JAR for reachability only compiling the methods/classes in use. This works but it's also what makes native-image difficult to use and brittle.

It's hard, and some might argue impossible, to statically analyze reachability in a dynamic language like java that allows for runtime class loading and redefinition. As it turns out, Java is much closer to javascript than C++ in terms of dynamic runtime behavior.

[vips7L]

In the Java sense, if you properly utilize JPMS, JLink can cut dead modules and reduce your image size drastically. This obviously of course like you said depends on how "open" your runtime model is. If you're not dynamically loading jars it works really well.