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Right. Note that at the time Gecko was initially developed, it wasn't at all clear that JS would win. Having to support VBScript in addition to JS was a very re
by pcwalton 7y ago
Right. Note that at the time Gecko was initially developed, it wasn't at all clear that JS would win. Having to support VBScript in addition to JS was a very real possibility. So COM made a certain amount of sense as a way to expose Web APIs to multiple languages simultaneously.
Thankfully, the Web avoided VBScript, and later Dart.
- pjmlp 7y agoGiven market share of Chrome, WebAssembly and Flutter, you should hold on to that "thankfully". Also from BUILD React Native talks regarding React Native vs Electron performance on Windows, I wouldn't be surprised if VSCode eventually moves away from Electron into React Native.
- pcwalton 7y ago> Given market share of Chrome, WebAssembly and Flutter, you should hold on to that "thankfully". WebAssembly doesn't need COM because it's integrated into the JS engine and uses the same JS engine bindings. I don't think anyone, even Googlers, seriously thinks that native Dart is going to make it onto the Web at this point.
- pjmlp 7y agoChrome never used COM as part of its implementation. My reply had nothing to do with it. Naturally from Mozilla's employee point of view it is easier to ignore what I actually meant.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]