There has been much buzz about GraalVM and what it means for the Java world. GraalVM is a Java distribution from Oracle that adds a bunch of features, most notably a new JIT compiler, polyglot capabilities, an LLVM runtime… and the ability to turn your Java application into a native binary.

Apache Maven is still the most popular build tool in the Java space, thanks to the popularity of its ecosystem of plugins. It’s easy to find an existing plugin to do almost anything your application needs, from ensuring your source files have license headers, to validating binary compatibility between versions. Occasionally though, you need to write a custom plugin to fulfill a requirement in your product.