Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Releases JavaScriptCore Framework

Posted by pudge on from the i-thought-java-was-dead dept.

ace writes "Apple has released the source to JavaScriptCore, a JavaScript framework based on KDE's kjs JavaScript engine. 'JavaScriptCore is a private API which may be used by future Mac OS X applications such as Sherlock, and is provided as Open Source as part of our partnership with the KDE community. JavaScriptCore will be used by Sherlock in an upcoming OS release, and possibly by other Apple software in the future. Apple chose kjs as the basis of its JavaScript technology for its simple and efficient code.'"

5 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Intersting by Matthias+Wiesmann · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think this is good news, it shows that the KDE code is good, and that Apple is willing to contribute back.

    The interesting thing for me is that it shows a good trend, i.e that OS X is converging with other Unixes not only at low level (Jaguar should sync with a more recent version of BSD) but also at the component/framework level: beside this Javascript component, CUPS is scheduled to be included in Jaguar.

    An interesting question would be, what other open source components/framework would be good additions to Mac OS X? I suppose one obvious answer is a native version of GTK

  2. Re:so... um? by Matthias+Wiesmann · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The next version of Sherlock should be much more like Watson, i.e offer an Aqua interface to many web services. For this, a javascript engin will come in handy.

  3. Needs Developer Tools Beta by schwatoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    This framework needs the Mac OS X Developer Tools Beta to compile available from connect.apple.com.

    Interesting to see this library wrapped in a Framework despite Apple's recommendations for developers not to put 'legacy' unix code in a Framework.

    --
    I have trouble with passwords among other things.
  4. What's it for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems to me Apple wants to support Javascript within Sherlock due to the addition of new internal HTML rendering capabilities within Sherlock 3. (vs. today's Sherlock, which requires linking to a Browser to reveal/show webpage search results.)
    My guess is that over time Apple wil make Javascript an equal MacOS X scripting system, alongside Applescript - and thus it's potential for us in other apps as well...

  5. Re:Apple contributes, but what about Redhat? by Shisha · · Score: 3, Informative

    Was this meant to be ironical? I really can't tell, whether you were serious or just flaming. Have you ever heard of GCC? Both RH and SuSe support GCC quite a bit. Mandrake and SuSe support KDE (some full and part time developers).

    The KDE Java Script engine was developed by the KDE people not Apple, they are just saying that if they happen to improve it, they will make the changes available to KDE people. So they are not contributing a nice JScript engine.

    Can someone explain how Aqua contributes to the OSS community? I believe that that's as proprietary as it get.