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That's kinda my point as well. If we are to wipe clean. Nothing in browser for scripting exists. Some kid from Zambia develops JavScript 2.0 in two weeks. Ent

by Ygg2 13y ago

That's kinda my point as well. If we are to wipe clean. Nothing in browser for scripting exists. Some kid from Zambia develops JavScript 2.0 in two weeks. Entire Google team works out a specification for LLWM (Low Level Web Machine) and it's pretty close to LLVM. They take how long to implement it?! People need to get their browser scripted so they look around shopping for a new language. Oh, cool the awesome LLWM spec is out there. Wow. It's got all the thing they want. Let's wait.... A month passes. People look again but no LLWM. On the other hand there is this JavScript 2.0 that kind of works. It's ugly, but Mark took a look at it and he uses to make dancing kittens. In 3D (i.e. the picture just rotates around axis, using CSS). Another month passes. Is LLWM done yet? Hmm, the clients are itchy, they want their browser scripted. Maybe dabbling in that JavScript 2.0 doesn't sound so bad. Third month passes. LLWM is still being worked on. Your clients have employed Mark and dumped you. Yeah, life is cruel and JavScript 2.0 is more cruel - Integers overflow when adding two numbers with more than six digits each, it confuses 0 and o, no local variables, just global vars. ... Fourth month passes. LLWM is still being worked on. JavScript 2.0 sucks but everyone tolerates it. Also there is JavScript 2.1 comming out that allows variables to not be in UPPERCASE. And there is a nice library for dancing kittens called dance.jv2 ... Year passes. LLWM ships. JavScript 2.123 is out and it's about the same in terms of speed and features. Sure there are few warts here and there, like lack of static typing, but overall it's quite solid. Compare this situation with many other examples of Worse is Better.

cromwellian 13y ago
How long between Javascript's "it only took 2 weeks" until now though? Is this is an example of "worse is better" innovating at faster speed, when in fact, Javascript performance has moved at a glacial pace until recently and it took enormous investment to get there. I think it is fair to say that if someone started with today's web/mobile requirements and designed a language from scratch to meet performance, latency, and memory requirements as well as portability/cross platform execution, it probably would not take as long as Javascript did to reach the current levels of performance. That is, you're comparing 15+ years of Javascript JIT engineering activity with what, 2-3 years of PNaCL activity by a much smaller team?
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  Are you sure it's a much smaller team? Do you have any data on how many people are working on PNaCl or have been? Opera had fewer than 5 people working on their JIT, I believe. I don't think Apple has had a particularly huge JIT team either...
- Ygg2 13y ago
  >I think it is fair to say that if someone started with today's web/mobile requirements and designed a language from scratch to meet performance, latency, and memory requirements as well as portability/cross platform execution True, but so is that developing a simpler, cruder and slower but Fast Enough alternative to said language, would take less time and by the time the said alternative would developer, they would be on same feature parity. > That is, you're comparing 15+ years of Javascript JIT engineering activity with what, 2-3 years of PNaCL activity by a much smaller team? No, I'm comparing asm.js engineering (if you can call it that), to (P)NaCl. JS performance improvements was a weird road to take, but JS of old days wasn't the JS of new days. It's use case was significantly different and Google wanted to enable new use cases for it to run it's Gmail program. So they did.
- BrendanEich 13y ago
  Enormous investment? See my estimate (generous) above. Contrast with the Dart (nee Dash) investment, where a team of at least 60 now labors on a language+VM that cannot cross the chasm to other browsers in any foreseeable future where there are multiple browsers with disjoint source that have significant market share. Evolution doesn't care about aesthetics (my pelican slide from JSConf.{us,eu}). It doesn't care about wealth-effect follies that can't be standardized among developers without a compile-to-JS plan that undermines the native-VM plan. It does not care about roads-not-taken in the past, so long as the road from here is clear. Bet on evolution. /be
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    Bet on punctuated equilibrium. Both PNaCL and asm.js are could follies if you consider mobile games. There is no incentive for someone developing games for consoles or phones to use either of those technologies.

by Ygg2 13y ago

cromwellian 13y ago

How long between Javascript's "it only took 2 weeks" until now though? Is this is an example of "worse is better" innovating at faster speed, when in fact, Javascript performance has moved at a glacial pace until recently and it took enormous investment to get there. I think it is fair to say that if someone started with today's web/mobile requirements and designed a language from scratch to meet performance, latency, and memory requirements as well as portability/cross platform execution, it probably would not take as long as Javascript did to reach the current levels of performance. That is, you're comparing 15+ years of Javascript JIT engineering activity with what, 2-3 years of PNaCL activity by a much smaller team?

bzbarsky 13y ago
Are you sure it's a much smaller team? Do you have any data on how many people are working on PNaCl or have been? Opera had fewer than 5 people working on their JIT, I believe. I don't think Apple has had a particularly huge JIT team either...
Ygg2 13y ago
>I think it is fair to say that if someone started with today's web/mobile requirements and designed a language from scratch to meet performance, latency, and memory requirements as well as portability/cross platform execution True, but so is that developing a simpler, cruder and slower but Fast Enough alternative to said language, would take less time and by the time the said alternative would developer, they would be on same feature parity. > That is, you're comparing 15+ years of Javascript JIT engineering activity with what, 2-3 years of PNaCL activity by a much smaller team? No, I'm comparing asm.js engineering (if you can call it that), to (P)NaCl. JS performance improvements was a weird road to take, but JS of old days wasn't the JS of new days. It's use case was significantly different and Google wanted to enable new use cases for it to run it's Gmail program. So they did.
BrendanEich 13y ago
Enormous investment? See my estimate (generous) above. Contrast with the Dart (nee Dash) investment, where a team of at least 60 now labors on a language+VM that cannot cross the chasm to other browsers in any foreseeable future where there are multiple browsers with disjoint source that have significant market share. Evolution doesn't care about aesthetics (my pelican slide from JSConf.{us,eu}). It doesn't care about wealth-effect follies that can't be standardized among developers without a compile-to-JS plan that undermines the native-VM plan. It does not care about roads-not-taken in the past, so long as the road from here is clear. Bet on evolution. /be
- cromwellian 13y ago
  Bet on punctuated equilibrium. Both PNaCL and asm.js are could follies if you consider mobile games. There is no incentive for someone developing games for consoles or phones to use either of those technologies.