JET : an application of partial evaluation in dynamic code generation for Java

Abstract

Java is a popular new language with enormous potential; however, its lack of speed is a major drawback. Staged compilation and runtime specialization through procedure cloning are techniques used to improve code generation and execution performance. The research described in this paper applies these techniques in the design and implementation of a runtime system to improve Java performance. Analyses indicate that staged compilation results in a major improvement in performance. In this current implementation, runtime specialization and constant propagation provides a smaller incremental benefit, but with more aggressive and new forms of specialization, the benefits of dynamic specialization will likely increase.