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I hope this is not ActiveX-sans-security-hole all over again. Native code has the huge benefit of being native but also the huge drawback of platform-dependent,

I hope this is not ActiveX-sans-security-hole all over again. Native code has the huge benefit of being native but also the huge drawback of platform-dependent, which is a huge step backward for the openness of the Web. I only hope the use of NaCl does not take off is kept to the minimum and the absolutely necessary. Even if they are talking about Portable NaCl, I have doubt about how portable they can make it.

wmf 16y ago
The "platform" for NaCl is x86, so the same code runs on OS X, Windows, and Linux. pNaCl supports both instruction sets (x86 and ARM), so it's even better.
- eddieplan9 16y ago
  On ARM support, from their website: > Native Client runs on 32- and 64-bit x86 systems that use Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Some ARM support is implemented in the source base, and we hope to make it available for application developers next year.
  - othermaciej 16y ago
    At least with the current native client, you ship architecture-specific binaries. So the existence of "some ARM support" doesn't help you browse a site that posted x86 object code. They do have a version that's based on shipping LLVM bitcode instead, but that is not yet ready for prime time and it's not clear when it will be. Here is a comment of mine from last time NaCl came up that explains this and other issues with it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611
rictic 16y ago
That's silly, LLVM bitcode is as portable as you like. Hell, you can translate it to javascript if you're truly worried about absolute browser portability: http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/
- azakai 16y ago
  > That's silly, LLVM bitcode is as portable as you like LLVM bitcode is actually not meant to be portable at all. It is very specific to the machine it is built for - endianness, structure alignment, and so forth. > Hell, you can translate it to javascript if you're truly worried about absolute browser portability: http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ Thanks for mentioning Emscripten, I wrote it :) It's interesting though, that a main challenge in Emscripten is exactly to deal with the non-portability issues in LLVM. The reason LLVM is used in Emscripten (and, I suspect, in PNaCl) is not that it is portable - it isn't - but that nothing portable exists which is as good as LLVM in other respects (clean codebase, well-defined assembly language, good toolchain, etc.).
  - aphexairlines 16y ago
    How about C--? http://www.cminusminus.org/ http://www.cminusminus.org/

wmf 16y ago

The "platform" for NaCl is x86, so the same code runs on OS X, Windows, and Linux. pNaCl supports both instruction sets (x86 and ARM), so it's even better.

eddieplan9 16y ago
On ARM support, from their website: > Native Client runs on 32- and 64-bit x86 systems that use Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Some ARM support is implemented in the source base, and we hope to make it available for application developers next year.
- othermaciej 16y ago
  At least with the current native client, you ship architecture-specific binaries. So the existence of "some ARM support" doesn't help you browse a site that posted x86 object code. They do have a version that's based on shipping LLVM bitcode instead, but that is not yet ready for prime time and it's not clear when it will be. Here is a comment of mine from last time NaCl came up that explains this and other issues with it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611

rictic 16y ago

That's silly, LLVM bitcode is as portable as you like. Hell, you can translate it to javascript if you're truly worried about absolute browser portability: http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/

azakai 16y ago
> That's silly, LLVM bitcode is as portable as you like LLVM bitcode is actually not meant to be portable at all. It is very specific to the machine it is built for - endianness, structure alignment, and so forth. > Hell, you can translate it to javascript if you're truly worried about absolute browser portability: http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ http://code.google.com/p/emscripten/ Thanks for mentioning Emscripten, I wrote it :) It's interesting though, that a main challenge in Emscripten is exactly to deal with the non-portability issues in LLVM. The reason LLVM is used in Emscripten (and, I suspect, in PNaCl) is not that it is portable - it isn't - but that nothing portable exists which is as good as LLVM in other respects (clean codebase, well-defined assembly language, good toolchain, etc.).
- aphexairlines 16y ago
  How about C--? http://www.cminusminus.org/ http://www.cminusminus.org/