4 ms·

It seems Mozilla and Google are moving more and more toward their own browser specifications and mechanisms. Microsoft and Netscape did this in the 90s, and it

It seems Mozilla and Google are moving more and more toward their own browser specifications and mechanisms. Microsoft and Netscape did this in the 90s, and it ended up causing nothing but pain. Optimizing JS is interesting, but creating browser-specific applications of code meant for a web audience disturbs me. I don't want a repeat of the first browser wars. Hopefully Mozilla will work toward w3 standards in this effort, since Google clearly hasn't with Dart.

callahad 13y ago
As far as I know, asm.js is a strict subset of JavaScript -- I don't believe it's "browser-specific" in a meaningful way. Rather, it shows that it's possible to take a subset of JavaScript and make it run at near-native speeds, which means that there's still a lot of room left for the VMs to improve. From glancing at the benchmarks in the Ars article, it looks like asm.js generally runs around twice to four times as fast as the same code without asm.js-specific optimizations. This is a huge improvement, but it's not the difference between something being blazing fast in one browser and unusably slow in another.
- ajuc 13y ago
  In some applications it doesn't matter, in some it's crucial. If your game runs at 60 fps in firefox and 15 fps in other browsers, it's effectively firefox-only game. Additionaly browser games can't have main game loop (cause it would hang the browser infinitely), but often use "requestAnimationFrame" to trigger updates with the best sustained refresh rate available. Even if only one frame out of every 10 in your game is taking 20 ms instead of 16 ms - your game won't run with 60 fps anymore, but with 45 fps or 30 fps because browser is trying to choose refresh rate that will work. And that's a big difference in experience.
Skalman 13y ago
There a bug for V8 about implementing asm.js: http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=2599 http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=2599
timothya 13y ago
At Google I/O this year, Google indicated some interest in asm.js, and noted that since asm.js was released V8 has already gotten significantly faster in running asm.js code. With regards to Dart, Google has said that they plan to get the language formally standardized after reaching the stable 1.0 release. It doesn't make sense to try to standardize something that's still in beta.
- bad_user 13y ago
  I hope Dart's beta won't last for 10 years, like their other betas.
  - timothya 13y ago
    The team said at I/O that they're trying to hit 1.0 sometime this summer.
solomatov 13y ago
I think this is actually is a very good thing. Before the next big thing can be standardized, it should be created. Google tried to create a next big thing, by moving in several directions, among them are both Dart and PNaCl (which IMO, is the way to go, it provides good browser integration and 95% of the native code with both multithreading and other stuff). Mozilla, IMO, is more interest in keeping the status quo and resisting any significant innovation.
- takluyver 13y ago
  There's two kinds of innovation around technology platforms: you can innovate with the platform itself, by designing new operating systems, programming languages, browsers, libraries etc. Or you can innovate on top of the platform, by doing new things a level up. We benefit most from a balance of the two. Mozilla aren't resisting innovation. They've chosen to keep Javascript (the platform) and innovate on top of it, e.g. with pdf.js. Google is aiming to develop alternative platforms. They're both valuable activities.

callahad 13y ago

As far as I know, asm.js is a strict subset of JavaScript -- I don't believe it's "browser-specific" in a meaningful way. Rather, it shows that it's possible to take a subset of JavaScript and make it run at near-native speeds, which means that there's still a lot of room left for the VMs to improve. From glancing at the benchmarks in the Ars article, it looks like asm.js generally runs around twice to four times as fast as the same code without asm.js-specific optimizations. This is a huge improvement, but it's not the difference between something being blazing fast in one browser and unusably slow in another.

ajuc 13y ago
In some applications it doesn't matter, in some it's crucial. If your game runs at 60 fps in firefox and 15 fps in other browsers, it's effectively firefox-only game. Additionaly browser games can't have main game loop (cause it would hang the browser infinitely), but often use "requestAnimationFrame" to trigger updates with the best sustained refresh rate available. Even if only one frame out of every 10 in your game is taking 20 ms instead of 16 ms - your game won't run with 60 fps anymore, but with 45 fps or 30 fps because browser is trying to choose refresh rate that will work. And that's a big difference in experience.

Skalman 13y ago

There a bug for V8 about implementing asm.js: http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=2599 http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=2599

timothya 13y ago

At Google I/O this year, Google indicated some interest in asm.js, and noted that since asm.js was released V8 has already gotten significantly faster in running asm.js code. With regards to Dart, Google has said that they plan to get the language formally standardized after reaching the stable 1.0 release. It doesn't make sense to try to standardize something that's still in beta.

bad_user 13y ago
I hope Dart's beta won't last for 10 years, like their other betas.
- timothya 13y ago
  The team said at I/O that they're trying to hit 1.0 sometime this summer.

solomatov 13y ago

I think this is actually is a very good thing. Before the next big thing can be standardized, it should be created. Google tried to create a next big thing, by moving in several directions, among them are both Dart and PNaCl (which IMO, is the way to go, it provides good browser integration and 95% of the native code with both multithreading and other stuff). Mozilla, IMO, is more interest in keeping the status quo and resisting any significant innovation.

takluyver 13y ago
There's two kinds of innovation around technology platforms: you can innovate with the platform itself, by designing new operating systems, programming languages, browsers, libraries etc. Or you can innovate on top of the platform, by doing new things a level up. We benefit most from a balance of the two. Mozilla aren't resisting innovation. They've chosen to keep Javascript (the platform) and innovate on top of it, e.g. with pdf.js. Google is aiming to develop alternative platforms. They're both valuable activities.