AOT Compilation

Definitions

1. Ahead-of-Time compilation — translating high-level code to native machine code before deployment, producing a standalone binary. Eliminates cold-start latency, reduces memory footprint, and doesn't require a runtime on the target machine. GraalVM Native Image, Go, Rust, and C/C++ use AOT. Trade-off: loses JIT's ability to optimize based on runtime behavior.

   In plain English: Compiling code into a ready-to-run binary before deployment, so it starts instantly without a runtime.

   Example: "Compile the Java microservice with GraalVM Native Image for AOT — startup drops from 4 seconds to 50 milliseconds."

Related Terms

• Canary Deployment
• Tail Call Optimization
• Allocator
• Assembler
• JIT
• Tail Call Optimization
• JIT Compilation
• Profile Guided Optimization