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The Future of Google Chrome
TRNick writes "Lars Bak, who heads up development of Google Chrome's cornerstone javascript engine, talks about why Google is so focused on in-browser javascript performance, the role Chrome has played in driving up javascript performance in other browsers, and why it's taking so long to introduce support for third-party extensions. 'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more,' he says."
With compilers like GWT, Pyjamas, and HotRuby, I sometimes wonder if JavaScript is starting to emerge as a "portable assembly language" for dynamic languages, the way C is often used by higher-level language compilers. I mean, when it comes down to it JS is basically just hash tables and closures, some of the basic elements required for dynamic language execution.
Given a fast-as-C javascript engine, you could have a pretty decent VM to share between several dynamic languages, and due to JS's dynamic nature compiling these languages to JS is fairly trivial.
I mentioned this once on reddit and someone called it a 'braindead' approach. That may be true. I'm not sure. He also pointed out that many things you'd have to do to get languages like Ruby running in JS would require passing the context as a function argument, which he claimed would probably bypass any potential optimization by the JS compiler. Not sure about that either.
But I find it really interesting (and cool!) that JS's heavy web presence is giving it such attention in both the "compiler backend" and optimization departments simultaneously. Whether it's a braindead approach or not, it sure seems to be drawing a lot of interest lately.
I think it's more important that it's a challenge to the rest of the 'market' to catch up on Javascript performance. I don't think they -really- expect their browser to be the best or even have a decent market share... They just need something to point to and say 'See, it's possible. Why haven't you done it yet?'
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It is interesting the while javascript is being more and more heavily used, it is in a way like development tools have been reset 10 years.
Maybe I have been blind, but I have yet to come across a decent IDE for javascript development. All the nice features like code completion and even syntax checking are now no longer a given.
Even some decent syntax checking would be nice. I would like to know how much time is lost now on developers looking for typos in their js code. The only way you discover them is to run the code. And even then, the errors generated are not always helpful.
And debugging is getting more complicated. Stuff like venkman and firebug work for basic standard linked javascript, but the newer libraries use so many shortcuts in declaring objects that no debuggers just can't seem to keep up.
A lot of this is with any script that is weakly typed. So many libraries and scripts take advantage and abuse this.
Now these same libraries are abstracting so much of what is hard browser differences and the like out. So that is good. But with this only really being at the start of being heavily used. I can see some real ugly legacy applications around in five years time.
And this type of scripting is popping up everywhere, I see servers now that have javascript running on the server, and other devices using them for UI.
I think it is important to add that Google Chrome already supports add-ons (well, user scripts)... the types that block ads... customize sites... etc... I use these user scripts all the time, and these weren't ones I wrote myself... these are ones written by others.
What Chrome does not yet have is the ability for non-techies to easily find and install these user scripts. That is definitely coming, but everyone just needs to be patient. Also what is coming is the ability for such add-ons to modify and tweak the UI.