As a teenager, a Commodore 64 and DIY solder kits ignited my passion for computers and electronics. But for some obscure reason, I chose an unexpected path by attending film school. I graduated when video and television moved from analog to digital, and the first connected computers began shaping the foundation of the internet we know today. My journey eventually led me to web and software development, where I discovered Java nearly 15 years ago. Since then, Java has been my primary programming language.
In the summer of 2022, my life took an exciting turn when I joined Azul as a technical writer. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by people who had been working on Java since the early start and even contributed to some of the core libraries. A whole new world opened for me! I learned more about the OpenJDK project's internals than I ever imagined when I was using Java as a developer...
How many Garbage Collectors do you know in Java? Did you know your Java program needs a warm-up time? Are you familiar with the various stages of the JIT compiler? The ongoing debate between JIT and AOT compilation? And how tools like CRaC, ReadyNow, and Falcon can help you to run your code faster?
Let me take you on a journey through OpenJDK-land, and what I learned about how Java starts an application, compiles the code, and needs time to reach its maximum performance. This expedition will also give you an insight into how the OpenJDK project is organized and what information you can find in its sources.
Brace yourself for some exciting findings because, as it turns out, experimenting with Java on the Raspberry Pi also taught me new things about optimizing Java application performance!
