4 ms·

I wonder if Microsoft is actually spearheading the implementation of ES6 in the browser or did they benefit from the timelines of the ES6 specification fortuito

I wonder if Microsoft is actually spearheading the implementation of ES6 in the browser or did they benefit from the timelines of the ES6 specification fortuitously lining up with the development of Edge - or maybe both.

stupidcar 11y ago
Not sure what you mean by "lining up with"? The development of ES6/ES2015, and the development of all the browsers and their various JS engines are pretty much ongoing, all the time. The Edge, Chrome, Firefox and WebKit teams are all working on ES6 compatibility, and releasing new versions pretty frequently. The Edge team are in the lead because they've implemented more features, faster. Chrome/V8 was actually quite a way behind for a while, although they've caught up quite a bit recently. I believe the situation wrt to V8 within Google was a bit messy for a while, as the original developers (Lars Bak, etc.) were more interested in championing Dart than implementing the latest ES6 features. Eventually, Google had to create a new team, based in Munich, to work on V8.
- arnold_palmur 11y ago
  Of course, I'm merely saying that there might be some benefit that arises from implementing a specification (ES6) into a newer engine vs a legacy engine.
  - stupidcar 11y ago
    Ah, I see. The JS engine actually wasn't changed for Edge, just the rendering engine. Chakra has been around since 2009, and was used in IE9-11. It was one a wave of new JS engines developed in response to the release of Chrome/V8 which destroyed the previous generation of JS engines in terms of performance (I'm sure the various browser vendors would say they always planned to create faster JS engines, but there's no doubt that the release of Chrome/V8 in 2008 accelerated their efforts).
    - gsnedders 11y ago
      > It was one a wave of new JS engines developed in response to the release of Chrome/V8 which destroyed the previous generation of JS engines in terms of performance (I'm sure the various browser vendors would say they always planned to create faster JS engines, but there's no doubt that the release of Chrome/V8 in 2008 accelerated their efforts). Well, TraceMonkey can at least legitimately argue to not be inspired by it: it was publicly announced prior to Chrome, and work obviously started on it before that.
gsnedders 11y ago
As far as one can tell, the move from IE to Edge had much less of an affect on Chakra. (Chakra's codebase is, after all, far newer than IE's!)

stupidcar 11y ago

Not sure what you mean by "lining up with"? The development of ES6/ES2015, and the development of all the browsers and their various JS engines are pretty much ongoing, all the time. The Edge, Chrome, Firefox and WebKit teams are all working on ES6 compatibility, and releasing new versions pretty frequently. The Edge team are in the lead because they've implemented more features, faster. Chrome/V8 was actually quite a way behind for a while, although they've caught up quite a bit recently. I believe the situation wrt to V8 within Google was a bit messy for a while, as the original developers (Lars Bak, etc.) were more interested in championing Dart than implementing the latest ES6 features. Eventually, Google had to create a new team, based in Munich, to work on V8.

arnold_palmur 11y ago
Of course, I'm merely saying that there might be some benefit that arises from implementing a specification (ES6) into a newer engine vs a legacy engine.
- stupidcar 11y ago
  Ah, I see. The JS engine actually wasn't changed for Edge, just the rendering engine. Chakra has been around since 2009, and was used in IE9-11. It was one a wave of new JS engines developed in response to the release of Chrome/V8 which destroyed the previous generation of JS engines in terms of performance (I'm sure the various browser vendors would say they always planned to create faster JS engines, but there's no doubt that the release of Chrome/V8 in 2008 accelerated their efforts).
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    > It was one a wave of new JS engines developed in response to the release of Chrome/V8 which destroyed the previous generation of JS engines in terms of performance (I'm sure the various browser vendors would say they always planned to create faster JS engines, but there's no doubt that the release of Chrome/V8 in 2008 accelerated their efforts). Well, TraceMonkey can at least legitimately argue to not be inspired by it: it was publicly announced prior to Chrome, and work obviously started on it before that.

gsnedders 11y ago

As far as one can tell, the move from IE to Edge had much less of an affect on Chakra. (Chakra's codebase is, after all, far newer than IE's!)