SIMD JavaScript Support Added To Firefox, Under Review For Chrome

[curaga]

Not sure if you're trolling or just stupid..... In the future, ALL software will be written in JavaScript.

Now I'm being trolled. That's a horrible future, and one I don't want to be a part of.

[Luke_Wolf]

Well, do that then and maybe it will take off the same way as javascript based web apps have. Until then the rest of us can enjoy writing and using faster javascript. Seriously, what's your problem?

Non-JS applications take off every day, and are dominant forces in their respective markets.

But you want to know what my problem is? My problem is people who treat the Web Browser as it's own OS and think that everything should be run on it, and completely ignore that it's a Trifecta of crappy loose standards, because Cloud Computing is the Hip new fad of the day. But guess what? Not only is this resulting in even more incompatibility issues than the ie6 days (even major sites like Youtube have serious issues, for instance playlists will more often than not break to where it will "switch" to the next video but the video it's playing won't have actually changed, and this wasn't a problem before the last half-year or so) but web browsers quite frankly can't handle this, and if you take a look at what they're having to deal with it's very obvious as to why. They have to deal with so much crap data that it's ridiculous. I get serious slowdown issues with firefox if I have it open for more than a few hours regardless of things like how many tabs I have open in it just because the modern web is that nasty to browsers. This didn't happen 4-5 years ago before this whole fad

They saw the problem and tried to enforce a strict standard with XHTML, in which parsing would be aborted on errors. And the tag is called <img> btw.

yes, they tried with XHTML, however the w3c screwed up the initial XHTML release by making it a transitional standard and continuing to allow loose adherence, and then when they released XHTML 2.0 all of gthe lazy web developers rebelled and the web browsers didn't end up implementing it, and then instead of sticking to their guns the w3c created HTML5 which meant we were back to the same old problems of loose standards all over again.

And yeah I saw the typo there, but 5 minute edit limits... and being used to intellisense a pedantic typist does not make (but it's okay because my IDE will do what's needed for me :P).

[abral]

Oh yes because web browsers aren't binaries, clearly... Obviously I don't need anything at all to run the javascript. Nope.

Fact: It's an interepreted language and as a result you need a binary, the interpreter, and JS needs it just as much as any other interpreted language so you get no points.

Works out of the box.... no... you still need a web browser or something else to interpret the JS code for you, just like anything else. Furthermore on almost every linux system BASH works "out of the box", but does that mean that I should be writing everything in BASH? Hell no.

Basically everyone has a web browser, so you don't need to worry about distributing it. Instead with Java, Python, etc., you don't know if users have the JVM, a Python interpreter, etc..

Furthermore just what systems are there that I should care about that somehow manage to run a web browser binary in order to be able to run JS but that can't run a program that was written in any common language (C, C++, Python, etc..)?

With JavaScript you just need a browser, that is guaranteed to be installed on the user machine. With C/C++ you need to compile your program for every platform. With Python, well, there are problem with distributing it on Windows, for example, where you need to ship the interpreter too (not so many people have a Python interpreter installed on Windows). With Java you need the JVM, that a lot of users don't have.

You know the .NET and JVM Managed Language guys claimed the same thing... guess what hasn't happened? Because here's the problem, as people find new and better ways to to make compilers optimize code the ideas get shared around and everyone implements them. Now the .NET and JVM guys could actually have an argument here because of a trick called Profile Guided Optimizations which they could continuously do, as long as the bytecode is cached.

JavaScript is optimized a lot, because there's a lot of competition around JavaScript performance. Yes, ideas spread and the .net and java virtual machines may be as fast as or faster than JavaScript, but who cares? You don't need the fastest, you just need one that is fast enough for your needs.

Well JSON is nice yes, however it's YAML with brackets... JS itself though.. yuck

JavaScript can also be a compilation target (I think this is what he meant with his post). You can write a C++ program and compile it to JavaScript, or you can translate Java into JavaScript.
If you like a static language, you can write in C++, use your static tooling, etc., and then compile it to JavaScript.

Surely you must be joking. Flash maybe since they're closish in terms of language and mozilla has decided to start on one (although in all likelihood it'll only get as far as Gnash, which is to say not far enough), Java and Silverlight though... hell no... not happening and you're completely daft if you think anyone but the most insane person is going to spend that kind of effort on a project like that. And if that person does the rest of the programming world will be looking at them with a cocked eye going WTF?

Shumway is already much better than Gnash.
Silverlight and Java aren't important (how many websites use Silverlight or Java?)

[AJenbo]

[unreal]Double troll![/unreal]

[Luke_Wolf]

Basically everyone has a web browser, so you don't need to worry about distributing it. Instead with Java, Python, etc., you don't know if users have the JVM, a Python interpreter, etc..

Actually most people do have Java installed either because something they pulled in needed it or if they're running linux most distros install it by default. The besides which is woo... big deal, it's not like this is an issue that has been there for forever and a day and has been solved plenty times over, if you're on windows you put a check in the installer and if it doesn't have it you download and install it for them. On linux you declare your dependency and let the distro packagers take care of everything for you, and maybe provide a generic rpm and deb, etc...

In short you're making up problems that don't really exist.

With JavaScript you just need a browser, that is guaranteed to be installed on the user machine. With C/C++ you need to compile your program for every platform. With Python, well, there are problem with distributing it on Windows, for example, where you need to ship the interpreter too (not so many people have a Python interpreter installed on Windows). With Java you need the JVM, that a lot of users don't have.

Compiling for every platform is seriously not as big of a problem as you make it out to be. Python has a BSD-ish license and as a result you can bundle it in your installer if you really want to, and as stated above actually most users do have a JVM installed because of other programs requiring it, and if we're just concerned about most users (aka those running windows) I can just use .NET and winforms.

Alternatively as stated for a third time now: I could use LLVM to JIT compile C++

JavaScript is optimized a lot, because there's a lot of competition around JavaScript performance. Yes, ideas spread and the .net and java virtual machines may be as fast as or faster than JavaScript, but who cares? You don't need the fastest, you just need one that is fast enough for your needs.

Yes, But the individual that I was replying to stated :

4) thanks to good compiler optimizations it will be soon "faster than native"

which is at best utterly absurd at worst a bad joke. So take it in that context.

JavaScript can also be a compilation target (I think this is what he meant with his post). You can write a C++ program and compile it to JavaScript, or you can translate Java into JavaScript.
If you like a static language, you can write in C++, use your static tooling, etc., and then compile it to JavaScript.

actually I'm pretty sure he wanted a JVM in JS which is nuts.

Shumway is already much better than Gnash.
Silverlight and Java aren't important (how many websites use Silverlight or Java?)

ah.. haven't tested either recently to compare the two, and don't intend to. Also yes Java and Silverlight mostly aren't used at this point other than things like netflix, blackboard, and such but they are still valid options to use, just few people will have Java enabled.

[Mike Frett]

SONY /s

Sony eh. Yeah the same people who brought us the most consumer unfriendly and DRM filled format to date, Blu-ray. Totally incompatible with Open Source and the Free Software Movement. Sony also takes great pleasure in making sure they are steps ahead in preventing Linux (and Mac) users from playing their version of UltraViolet Digital Copies of Movies. Blu-ray doesn't exist for me. And Sony can kiss my grits, along with Microsoft.

[Daktyl198]

I just want to hop in and say I kinda agree with Luke_Wolf on this argument.

There are things JavaScript should be used for (interactive web pages, simple-and-stupid web games, etc) and things it really, really shouldn't be used for. Unfortunately, the die-hard JavaScript fans don't realize this, and think it can and should be use for _everything_. Hell, I saw a guy switch from cmake to node.js (writing the script himself), breaking all ARM compatibility along with introducing a ton of issues that weren't there previously. All because he "likes node.js" >_>

[ua=42]

Dynamically typed variables is one of the worst ideas in programming. I have only had to experience this form of hell with python but here are the reasons why dynamically typed variables suck.

• If you use them as dynamically typed variables, the code quickly becomes unmaintainable.
• When looking at someone's code, you have no idea what is being stored in a variable until you find all its assignments.
• It prevents the use of automatic bug finders being able to work on the code.
• You can't tell before you run the code, that the code will fail.

So.... what is the benefit to dynamically typed variables?
The first time you use a variable.... you don't have to say what type it is....
Instead of "int xyz=5" you just have to type "xyz=5"
So for saving you typing 3 to 4 characters once per variable.... you loose allot of convenience and code maintainability.

[abral]

I just want to hop in and say I kinda agree with Luke_Wolf on this argument.

There are things JavaScript should be used for (interactive web pages, simple-and-stupid web games, etc) and things it really, really shouldn't be used for. Unfortunately, the die-hard JavaScript fans don't realize this, and think it can and should be use for _everything_. Hell, I saw a guy switch from cmake to node.js (writing the script himself), breaking all ARM compatibility along with introducing a ton of issues that weren't there previously. All because he "likes node.js" >_>

I think JavaScript is now ready for more things than before. There's been so much progress in its performance that it can now run heavy games flawlessly (like the Unreal engine or Unity).

[abral]

Dynamically typed variables is one of the worst ideas in programming. I have only had to experience this form of hell with python but here are the reasons why dynamically typed variables suck.

• If you use them as dynamically typed variables, the code quickly becomes unmaintainable.
• When looking at someone's code, you have no idea what is being stored in a variable until you find all its assignments.
• It prevents the use of automatic bug finders being able to work on the code.
• You can't tell before you run the code, that the code will fail.

So.... what is the benefit to dynamically typed variables?
The first time you use a variable.... you don't have to say what type it is....
Instead of "int xyz=5" you just have to type "xyz=5"
So for saving you typing 3 to 4 characters once per variable.... you loose allot of convenience and code maintainability.

Well, C/C++ allow really BAD things to happen, if you don't use type casting correctly.

There are pros and cons for both static and dynamic languages. For example with a dynamic language you can write code in a quicker way. With static languages you can use some useful tools. They're just two examples, the list of pros and cons is longer. My point is that you can't say which is the "best type", because it depends on the situation.