Can you explain what GraalVM is and what it is used for?

GraalVM is a universal virtual machine that supports running programs written in various programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and others. The main goal of GraalVM is to improve performance and enable polyglot programming within a single application.

Features of GraalVM:

• High performance through an optimizing JIT compiler.
• Ability to compile Java applications into native executables (ahead-of-time compilation), reducing startup time and memory consumption.
• Support for polyglot programming — calling code written in different languages within one application.

Example of using GraalVM to compile a Java application into a native image:

native-image -jar myapp.jar

This creates an executable that starts faster and uses fewer resources compared to a traditional JVM.