"Turning GraalVM from Research to Product" by Thomas Wuerthinger (Strange Loop 2023)

GraalVM is a new runtime system that provides instant startup and low footprint for Java applications via ahead-of-time compilation. It also has polyglot capabilities that allows to execute and interoperate with many languages including JavaScript, Python, Ruby, WebAssembly, and native languages. This session discusses lessons learned while turning the vague research ideas behind GraalVM into a released product over the timespan of more than a decade, how we experienced our entry to the developer community, and also major technical questions where we now think differently.
Thomas Wuerthinger
Vice President of GraalVM Research & Development
@thomaswue
Thomas Wuerthinger is a Vice President at Oracle Labs and the GraalVM founder and project lead. Previously, he worked on the Crankshaft optimizing compiler of V8 at Google, and the Maxine research virtual machine at Sun Microsystems. He received a PhD degree from JKU Linz for his research about dynamic code evolution.
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Recorded Sept 21, 2023 at Strange Loop 2023 in St. Louis, MO.
thestrangeloop...

[@brujua7]

Great talk! Hope to see GraalVM thrive

[@robertsynofzik7519]

Great stuff, thanks!

[@dougxc]

To work with such an inspiring engineer is what makes my job so satisfying, even when the Thomas fire-hose is trained on a pull request of mine every now and again ;-)

[@BethKjos]

Cool product. I read some of the early hype and it seemed a bit pie-in-the-sky. It's neat to see it came to fruition. Whoever criticizes corporate open source must reconsider. I doubt Oracle expects an army of volunteers to build version two for free. Much more likely is that someone chasing an oddball question has the ultimate resource, *and that is a competitive advantage* for the big project sponsors.