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While I agree the enhancement is significant, the title of this post makes it seem more like an advertisement for Rust than an optimization article. If you rewr

While I agree the enhancement is significant, the title of this post makes it seem more like an advertisement for Rust than an optimization article. If you rewrite js code into a native language, be it Rust or C, of course it's gonna be faster and use less resources.

baq 2y ago
'of course' is not really that obvious except for microbenchmarks like this one.
- ports543u 2y ago
  I think it is pretty obvious. Native languages are expected to be faster than interpreted or jitted, or automatic-memory-management languages in 99.9% of cases, where the programmer has far less control over the operations the processor is doing or the memory it is copying or using.
  - baq 2y ago
    It isn't obvious at all. A jit compiler has access to information that an aot compiler can only dream of. There aren't many languages which have both jit and aot compilers, though.
    - ahoka 2y ago
      Java, C#?
      - baq 2y ago
        yeah, that isn't 'many' and e.g. in java's case hotspot is a rather nice piece of engineering
    - consteval 2y ago
      > A jit compiler has access to information that an aot compiler can only dream of If you know the machine and platform ahead of time, not really. For frontend JS this isn't the case. But for backend code it absolutely is the case. Sure, theoretically the JIT can sit in the background, see which functions are called the most and how they're call and then re-JIT pieces of code. In practice, I'm not sure how often this is done and if you even gain much performance. You MIGHT in a dynamically typed lang like JS because you can find out a bunch of info at runtime. In something like C# though? You already know a bunch at compile-time.
      - neonsunset 2y ago
        https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-8/#tiering-and-dynamic-pgo https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen...
mplanchard 2y ago
Is there an equivalently easy way to expose a native interface from C to JS as the example in the post? Relatedly, is it as easy to generate a QR code in C as it is in Rust (11 LoC)?
- ports543u 2y ago
  > Is there an equivalently easy way to expose a native interface from C to JS as the example in the post? Yes, for most languages. For example, in Zig (https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#WebAssembly https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#WebAssembly) or in C (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_Wasm https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_Wa...) > Relatedly, is it as easy to generate a QR code in C as it is in Rust (11 LoC)? Yes, there are plenty of easy to use QR-code libraries available, for pretty much every relevant language. Buffer in, buffer out.
- AndrewDucker 2y ago
  It's that simple in Rust because it's using a library. C also has libraries for generating QR codes: https://github.com/ricmoo/QRCode https://github.com/ricmoo/QRCode (Obviously there are other advantages to Rust)
  - mplanchard 2y ago
    nice, thanks for the link!

baq 2y ago

'of course' is not really that obvious except for microbenchmarks like this one.

ports543u 2y ago
I think it is pretty obvious. Native languages are expected to be faster than interpreted or jitted, or automatic-memory-management languages in 99.9% of cases, where the programmer has far less control over the operations the processor is doing or the memory it is copying or using.
- baq 2y ago
  It isn't obvious at all. A jit compiler has access to information that an aot compiler can only dream of. There aren't many languages which have both jit and aot compilers, though.
  - ahoka 2y ago
    Java, C#?
    - baq 2y ago
      yeah, that isn't 'many' and e.g. in java's case hotspot is a rather nice piece of engineering
  - consteval 2y ago
    > A jit compiler has access to information that an aot compiler can only dream of If you know the machine and platform ahead of time, not really. For frontend JS this isn't the case. But for backend code it absolutely is the case. Sure, theoretically the JIT can sit in the background, see which functions are called the most and how they're call and then re-JIT pieces of code. In practice, I'm not sure how often this is done and if you even gain much performance. You MIGHT in a dynamically typed lang like JS because you can find out a bunch of info at runtime. In something like C# though? You already know a bunch at compile-time.
    - neonsunset 2y ago
      https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-8/#tiering-and-dynamic-pgo https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen...

mplanchard 2y ago

Is there an equivalently easy way to expose a native interface from C to JS as the example in the post? Relatedly, is it as easy to generate a QR code in C as it is in Rust (11 LoC)?

ports543u 2y ago
> Is there an equivalently easy way to expose a native interface from C to JS as the example in the post? Yes, for most languages. For example, in Zig (https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#WebAssembly https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#WebAssembly) or in C (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_Wasm https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_Wa...) > Relatedly, is it as easy to generate a QR code in C as it is in Rust (11 LoC)? Yes, there are plenty of easy to use QR-code libraries available, for pretty much every relevant language. Buffer in, buffer out.
AndrewDucker 2y ago
It's that simple in Rust because it's using a library. C also has libraries for generating QR codes: https://github.com/ricmoo/QRCode https://github.com/ricmoo/QRCode (Obviously there are other advantages to Rust)
- mplanchard 2y ago
  nice, thanks for the link!