This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(August 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This articlerelies excessively onreferences toprimary sources. Please improve this article by addingsecondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Maxine Virtual Machine" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Maxine
Original authors	Bernd Mathiske, Douglas Simon (Sun Labs,Oracle)
Developers	University of Manchester, Maxine team
Initial release	2005; 21 years ago (2005)
Stable release	2.9.0[1] / December 20, 2019; 6 years ago (2019-12-20)
Written in	Java
Operating system	Solaris,Linux,macOS
Platform	x64, ARM32, AArch64, RISC-V
Type	Java virtual machine
License	GPL version 2.0
Website	github.com/beehive-lab/Maxine-VM
Repository	github.com/beehive-lab/Maxine-VM

TheMaxine virtual machine is an open sourcevirtual machine that is developed at the University of Manchester.^[2] It was formerly developed bySun Microsystems Laboratories,^[3] since renamed Oracle Labs. The emphasis in Maxine'ssoftware architecture is on modular design and code reuse for flexibility, configurability, and productivity for industrial and academic virtual machine researchers. It is one of a growing number ofJava virtual machines written entirely in Java in ameta-circular style. Examples includeSquawk andJikes RVM.

The Maxine VM is characterized internally by aggressive use of advanced language features in Java 1.5 and 1.6, by modular subsystems coordinated through Java interfaces, by the absence of aninterpreter, and by a tightly coupled debugger and visualizationtool for VM development.

Maxine isplug compatible with an unmodifiedJava Development Kit (JDK). Maxine can be developed, built, and run in standard Javaintegrated development environments (IDEs), includingNetBeans,Eclipse, andIntelliJ IDEA.

A secondary goal of the project is to develop methods and tools for "systems programming in Java".Compiler extensions, configured in VMsource code usingJava annotations, allow use, with no performance penalty, of low-level operations otherwise disallowed in Java. These extensions provided the foundation for theGraal compiler.

Specialized debugging support for the Maxine VM is provided by the Maxine Inspector: a companion tool that acts as a combined object, class, and method browser, and as a machine- and bytecode-level debugger.^[4]The Inspector runs out-of-process, needs no active VM support, and leverages code shared with the VM for specialized developer services that exploit detailed knowledge of memory layout and VM design.^[5]Notable services include:

• multiple mode views of code^[6] (source, bytecode,^[7] disassembled machine code^[8]) with multi-mode breakpoints^[9] and stepping;
• thread,^[10] stack,^[11] register,^[12] and thread local variable inspection;
• flexible low-level memory visualization^[13] with dynamic interpretation and linking of memory values, e.g. as code locations, object references;
• dynamic visualization of object fields and metadata;^[14]
• boot image configuration details;^[15] and
• specialized algorithm-specific support for debugging during GC.

Maxine was created by Bernd Mathiske at Sun Labs in early 2005. He led its development among a growing team until late 2008 when he leftSun Microsystems and handed the project over to Doug Simon who had been the first engineer to join it. Doug Simon continued in this role throughout the acquisition of Sun byOracle Corporation.

The static (heap inspection) version of the Maxine Inspector was created by Bernd Mathiske in 2006. Michael Van De Vanter assumed development of the Inspector in 2007, adding dynamic support as the VM became executable and continued to evolve throughout the acquisition of Sun byOracle Corporation.

Oracle continued development of Maxine until the release of Maxine 2.0.^[16] The University of Manchester is developing Maxine as of release 2.1.^[17]

• List of Java virtual machines
• Squawk virtual machine
• Jikes RVM

• Kotselidis, Christos; Clarkson, James; Rodchenko, Andrey; Nisbet, Andy; Mawer, John; Luján, Mikel (2017). "Heterogeneous Managed Runtime Systems".Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments. VEE 2017. pp. 74–82.doi:10.1145/3050748.3050764.ISBN 978-1-4503-4948-2.
• Wimmer, Christian; Haupt, Michael; Van De Vanter, Michael L.; Jordan, Mick; Daynès, Laurent; Simon, Douglas (January 2013)."Maxine: An approachable virtual machine for, and in, java".ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization.9 (4). art. 30.doi:10.1145/2400682.2400689.ISSN 1544-3566.

• Official website
• Maxine VM project atRead the Docs

• Java virtual machine
• Oracle software
• Free and open source interpreters

• CS1 maint: archived copy as title
• Articles lacking in-text citations from August 2012
• All articles lacking in-text citations
• Articles lacking reliable references from June 2011
• All articles lacking reliable references
• Articles with multiple maintenance issues
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata