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Compiling Java into native binaries with Graal and Mill

Compiling Java into native binaries with Graal and Mill

4 comments

·February 2, 2025
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wiradikusuma

"Almost every Java program, library, and framework uses some degree of reflection and dynamic classloading, and so you do have to spend the effort to configure Graal appropriately." -- this is by far the biggest problem with native binary compilation.

Imagine spending 15+ minutes building an exe, and it stopping at minute 15 because some things needed to be added in the config. Or, after waiting 30 minutes to have the exe ready, it refused to run because of the same problem.

The issue is we don't know what we don't know. You don't "forget to include something" because you don't know what to include (and even after seeing the error, you still don't lol).

I just wished all 3rd party libraries put their "include this config to include my lib in your exe", just like OSGi manifest (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/wasdtfe?topic=overview-osgi-bund...).

For example, an issue still open for almost 2 years: https://github.com/firebase/firebase-admin-java/issues/800

killingtime74

We've been using it at work for a few years. A cli tool, builds in about 6 minutes. We compile it to Linux, Mac ARM and Mac Intel. You're correct about configuring libraries but I found those to be the minority. Most work without configuration. I do this because I will not use Golang if given a choice and Rust is not allowed.

theflyinghorse

Mill looks like an interesting option to try all around.

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