
What happened to Java to executable compilers? - cccccccc
I remember when gcj was an aspiring project to compile java to exe (or elf). What happened and why did no one replace it?<p>Java is a decent language, and I think it would be much more often used if one didn&#x27;t have to have <i>the right precise</i> version of JVM.<p>Now, with LLVM, it shouldn&#x27;t be too hard to make one. Is someone doing it?
======
CyberFonic
Have you looked at Eclipse Compiler for Java? It appears to be an active
project.

The appeal of Java was in the write once, run everywhere sales pitch. That's
why enterprise software used it widely, running on Solaris, AIX, HPUX and
Windows. OSS were less willing adopters - many other choices without the
proprietary overhang.

Since Oracle acquired Sun and with it Java, it is seen to be even more
proprietary and AIX and HPUX installations are petering out. So there is less
incentive to maintain a compiler when Oracle makes various unexpected changes
to the language and the licensing terms.

LibreOffice (derived from StarOffice - Sun) is an exception due to two
factors. First of all it was created by Sun and as a competitor to MS Office.
These days it runs on Windows, OS X and Linux mostly - three incompatible
environments which are bridged by JVM.

------
Recurecur
Gcj could never equal the overall performance of Hotspot, probably mostly
limited by the Boehm GC. Given the overhead and non-determinism of GC in
general, there is not a lot of impetus for realtime Java, which is probably
the biggest incentive to avoid JITC overhead.

If you want a modern, natively compiled, LLVM based language that avoids GC, I
suggest you look into Swift. :-)

