EmScripten Merges Its Speedy "Fastcomp" Backend

EmScripten, the innovative project for turning C++ code into JavaScript that can be run within web-browsers, has merged its brand new LLVM compiler back-end that is faster and also yields other benefits.

Fastcomp is the name of EmScripten's new LLVM C++ back-end. Fastcomp lives outside of the LLVM tree (along with some other EmScripten-designed LLVM patches) but aims to provide noticeable benefits over its original compiler back-end.

The new Fastcomp compiler core/back-end is more streamlined, tuned around producing ASM.js code, is much faster (around four times faster), uses less system memory, and has other improvements too. The JavaScript generated by Fastcomp is also slated to be better than its original compiler core. The downside to this work though is that this LLVM code is out-of-tree and doesn't work with a stock build of LLVM for right now.

More details on this new EmScripten code for turning C++ into JavaScript for the web can be found via the EmScripten mailing list and extensive information about Fastcomp can be found via the EmScripten Wiki.