5 ms·

There are now three engines vying for the title of the "fastest" JS engine: * Tracemonkey (Mozilla) * Squirrelfish (Apple/Webkit) * V8 (Google) I would love t

by cbetz 18y ago

There are now three engines vying for the title of the "fastest" JS engine: * Tracemonkey (Mozilla) * Squirrelfish (Apple/Webkit) * V8 (Google) I would love to see a benchmark comparison (Sunspider?) to see how V8 compares to Tracemonkey and Squirrelfish.

johns 18y ago
And let's hope this pushes MS into the race.
- ashu 18y ago
  Or, completely out, perhaps? I mean, the race has been going on for a bit, now.
  - johns 18y ago
    IE isn't going away, so I think its in everyone's best interests that they are actively involved in the browser competition.
    - axod 18y ago
      Why so sure it's not going away?
      - johns 18y ago
        Put yourself in their shoes and attempt to come up with one good reason why they wouldn't want to keep making a browser. They rarely get out of markets they're already in, and I don't think they're just going to forfeit a dominant market position just because the competition is better (see Windows).
        wheels 18y ago
        IE as an application is definitely here to stay, but I wouldn't consider it too off the wall for them to switch to one of the OSS HTML / JS engines. I don't expect it, but it wouldn't surprise me.
        axod 18y ago
        I didn't say they'd stop making a browser, I'd suggest people will just stop using it.
        stcredzero 18y ago
        If they do their classic strategy, it'll be "embrace and extend" with Javascript. The only problem is that their marketshare has eroded to the point where this might just cause their marketshare to erode even more.
jmtulloss 18y ago
Where does Tamarin land in this? They're working with Mozilla too, aren't they?
- wmf 18y ago
  Tracemonkey adopted ideas and pieces of Tamarin.
erik 18y ago
I found a blog entry with some SunSpider runs: http://web-graphics.com/2008/09/02/scripting-engines-just-got-a-whole-lot-faster/ http://web-graphics.com/2008/09/02/scripting-engines-just-go... Unfortunately a TraceMonkey bug prevents direct comparisons.
- ionfish 18y ago
  Brendan Eich posted some new numbers with a more recent TraceMonkey build. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/09/tracemonkey_update.html http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/09/trac...
invisible 18y ago
I'd bet V8 is a definite improvement over Tracemonkey. It really feels like V8 already improves the DOM manipulation/property getters/setters for DOM. Mozilla doesn't plan to do that until past 3.1! (Just find a site that has a lot of complex windows. Fastest link I could find: http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/desktop/desktop.html http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/desktop/desktop.html )
- KirinDave 18y ago
  It probably feels faster because WebKit is really good about DOM manipulation. A lot of people don't seem to realize that the lion's share of time for a lot of JS stuff is in manipulating the DOM and re-rendering the page. Coupling an advanced javascript compiler/vm with a really quick rendering engine leaves you with what you feel there. Hard numbers, V8 is maybe 3x faster than WebKit nightlies on every benchmark suite I could find.

by cbetz 18y ago

johns 18y ago

And let's hope this pushes MS into the race.

ashu 18y ago
Or, completely out, perhaps? I mean, the race has been going on for a bit, now.
- johns 18y ago
  IE isn't going away, so I think its in everyone's best interests that they are actively involved in the browser competition.
  - axod 18y ago
    Why so sure it's not going away?
    - johns 18y ago
      Put yourself in their shoes and attempt to come up with one good reason why they wouldn't want to keep making a browser. They rarely get out of markets they're already in, and I don't think they're just going to forfeit a dominant market position just because the competition is better (see Windows).
      - wheels 18y ago
        IE as an application is definitely here to stay, but I wouldn't consider it too off the wall for them to switch to one of the OSS HTML / JS engines. I don't expect it, but it wouldn't surprise me.
      - axod 18y ago
        I didn't say they'd stop making a browser, I'd suggest people will just stop using it.
      - stcredzero 18y ago
        If they do their classic strategy, it'll be "embrace and extend" with Javascript. The only problem is that their marketshare has eroded to the point where this might just cause their marketshare to erode even more.

jmtulloss 18y ago

Where does Tamarin land in this? They're working with Mozilla too, aren't they?

wmf 18y ago
Tracemonkey adopted ideas and pieces of Tamarin.

erik 18y ago

I found a blog entry with some SunSpider runs: http://web-graphics.com/2008/09/02/scripting-engines-just-got-a-whole-lot-faster/ http://web-graphics.com/2008/09/02/scripting-engines-just-go... Unfortunately a TraceMonkey bug prevents direct comparisons.

ionfish 18y ago
Brendan Eich posted some new numbers with a more recent TraceMonkey build. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/09/tracemonkey_update.html http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/09/trac...

invisible 18y ago

I'd bet V8 is a definite improvement over Tracemonkey. It really feels like V8 already improves the DOM manipulation/property getters/setters for DOM. Mozilla doesn't plan to do that until past 3.1! (Just find a site that has a lot of complex windows. Fastest link I could find: http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/desktop/desktop.html http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/desktop/desktop.html )

KirinDave 18y ago
It probably feels faster because WebKit is really good about DOM manipulation. A lot of people don't seem to realize that the lion's share of time for a lot of JS stuff is in manipulating the DOM and re-rendering the page. Coupling an advanced javascript compiler/vm with a really quick rendering engine leaves you with what you feel there. Hard numbers, V8 is maybe 3x faster than WebKit nightlies on every benchmark suite I could find.