Facebook Develops HTML5 Gaming Benchmark

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Facebook Develops HTML5 Gaming Benchmark

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday February 19, 2011 @11:18AM from the browser-war-ammo dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A couple of Facebook engineers are developing an HTML5 gaming benchmark. They write, 'Two weeks ago Bruce and I released JSGameBench version 0.1. Today marks the release of version 0.2, a much faster and cleaner version. We continue to learn both from tightening the code and from the strong HTML5 community. Version 0.2 reinforces our belief in HTML5 as a strong, horizontal platform for games and highly interactive applications across the web.'"

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Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 11:28 · Score: 2, Informative

When firefox kicks the shit out of it in the benchmark
1. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:10 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  When firefox kicks the shit out of it in the benchmark
  
  Because Chrome fanboys* are a lot like Apple fanboys* -- unconcerned with objective evidence of any kind. They are unable to appreciate Mozilla's accomplishments and strengths because they weren't done by "their team" and anyone not on "their team" is TEH ENEMY. Course, "their team" is sort of like the fat couch potatoes who see their favorite football team win a game and say "fuck yeah, we won" and the only correct response is "really? I didn't see you out there on that field". So they won, you shallow dipshits who'd have no identity whatsoever if you couldn't borrow some organization's.
  * There's a big, BIG difference between someone who uses a thing because it meets his/her needs and gives a satisfying experience but has no special loyalty to any corporation or brand name, versus someone who must fanatically defend their favorite corporate logo and make it look good whether or not it deserves to like some religious crusade because it's become an unhealthy extension of their ego. I know the Slashdot crowd doesn't do such a good job making these distinctions so I am spelling it out for you. Oh you'll knee-jerk anyway but now you'll do it with no excuse.
2. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Thing+1 · 2011-02-19 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  My new favorite response to office football discussions.
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
3. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by adamofgreyskull · 2011-02-19 13:28 · Score: 2
  
  tl;dr watch this.
4. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by bunratty · 2011-02-19 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  I never realized that religious wars over differing programs were like sports until now. I've never understand how people can argue over vi vs. emacs or Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Opera. I've never been into sports, either. Is it some sort of territorial thing?
  
  --
  What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
5. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 15:43 · Score: 0
  
  I never realized that religious wars over differing programs were like sports until now. I've never understand how people can argue over vi vs. emacs or Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Opera. I've never been into sports, either. Is it some sort of territorial thing?
  Sports are all about making a big deal out of a whole lot of nothing in order to make a statement about what you superficially like and where you stand. There is no rational reason to care so much and invest such a great deal of emotion in deciding which group of multimillionaires can best move a ball of some kind. It might be very important to the athletes since they pass or fail, succeed or don't, based on how they perform. There's no good reason it's important to you. It's much ado about nothing. Because there is so much ado, it is assumed by most that it must be about something.
  It plays on all of the "us against them" throwbacks to the caveman days, since there is "your team" and "everybody else, the opposition". Nevermind that "your team" isn't really yours, it's just something you have decided you like. It appeals to anyone who wants greatness or glory since those who do well are rewarded with the usual celebrity-worship and high salaries, however useless and unenlightening their area of success may be. If you're an egotistical sort, and that's what we now encourage people to be, then anything causing tens of thousands or millions of fans to cheer for you must be a good and inherently virtuous thing.
  In economic terms, they do not create wealth. They transfer wealth, mostly to themselves. The teams, athletes, owners, and broadcasters are not inventing anything new. They are not advancing any state of the art, expanding human knowledge, exploring any frontier, or making the world a better place. They are entertainers who distract from what life is about since this has become painful for so many. And they are loved so dearly for that, aren't they? It's some big excitement to get yourself caught up in with the hopes of losing yourself in it. It's a way for the otherwise completely unskilled to become rich and famous without ever stressing anything more than their physical bodies. It is to thinking men what strippers are to truly intelligent women -- all the stripper had to do was avoid becoming fat. The truly intelligent woman had to earn and sometimes suffer for her wisdom.
  You cowards. Try facing yourselves instead of looking for the next nothing to make a big deal out of.
6. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by BZ · 2011-02-19 15:48 · Score: 1
  
  Not quite territorial. Tribal. There's your tribe, and the Others. And you have to protect your tribe from those Others....
7. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 15:54 · Score: 0
  
  It's tagged both firefox and chrome. The chrome icon got chosen ahead of the firefox icon apparently.
8. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by perryizgr8 · 2011-02-19 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  hell even ie9 scores better. chrome outhta be ashamed.
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
9. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Zelgadiss · 2011-02-19 18:16 · Score: 1
  
  Well, Chrome 11 is still in alpha though.
  And from what I noticed, while Chrome seems to "lag" other browsers when you compare versions, but due to it's ridiculously fast development cycle it almost always catches up if not surpass it's competition.
  People have been saying, IE9 has this, FF4 has that, since ... Chrome 7, and they both still aren't out yet.
10. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 20:04 · Score: 0
  
  Sports are all about making a big deal out of a whole lot of nothing in order to make a statement about what you superficially like and where you stand. There is no rational reason to care so much and invest such a great deal of emotion in deciding which group of multimillionaires can best move a ball of some kind.
  It's about home town pride for the most part, or in some cases, such as hockey in Quebec (or the rest of Canada, for that matter), a cultural thing. Hockey is part of who we are, every Montrealer is born with ice in their veins and CH crest on their heart, every Torontonian with a Leafs crest, it's not so much about the team itself, or the players on the team, but about what the team represents, it's cheering for a group of people representing your city.
  And then there's international play, which is a whole different ballgame, when Crosby scored the overtime winner at the Olympics, the whole country federalist and sovereignist alike, erupted in joy, celebration and national unity, that day we were all Canadian, not French or English, that day wasn't about politics, because there's nothing more Canadian than hockey, it's so firmly ingrained in our cultural identity, such is the power of sports. Even beyond hockey, to see English Canadians cheering Quebecois athletes and Quebecois cheering English-Canadian athletes was simply amazing, we're usually divided, but again, the Olympics bring us all together.
  And then there's Wold/Euro Cup season, where all the European expats are football fans, weather or not they follow the sport habitually. There are flags everywhere, people out in face paint, victory parades all around town, it brings out everyone's inner patriot - it isn't about the team or even the players it's about national pride. It's amazing how international politics get played out on the pitch, and it's amazing how kicking a ball around a field can bring people together.
  You don't get sports, that's fine, but there are two sides to a coin. You can point out the devisive element in sport, but you can't pretend like there's no equal if not stronger uniting force associated with it.
  
  In economic terms, they do not create wealth. They transfer wealth, mostly to themselves.
  Funny you say that, so many charities here were started up and are run by pro athletes wanting to give something back to their community. The amount of funding the children's hospital gets from our hockey team is ludicrous, so many players who've since been traded away or released maintain their charities here, or even in Ottawa Yashin had donated a few million to the museum of fine arts. But maybe that's a Canadian thing.
  I don't know, maybe hating sports is a slashdot thing, because nerds suck at it, which is why they get all tribal over text editors and operating systems instead.
11. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 23:39 · Score: 0
  
  So THAT'S what Lost was all about!
  I get it now.
12. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by nyctopterus · 2011-02-19 23:43 · Score: 1
  
  No, Webkit is slow at compositing images, which I'm sure is what this benchmark reflecting. Firefox is really fast. Interestingly, this seems to be the case whether you use a bunch of HTML elements or canvas. The image rendering in Webkit needs an overhaul.
  I found this out when I was making this. Check it out in Firefox or Opera compared to Safari or Chrome.
13. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 02:11 · Score: 0
  
  At the end of the day, what matters is that you have more chance of winning the Kentucky Derby riding a cow, than there is of HTML5 getting anywhere.
  It can't do video properly, it can't do sound, and it can't do animation (e.g. games.) Is it really any surprise that this unholy hack isn't really getting off the ground...?
14. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by Zelgadiss · 2011-02-20 02:33 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting.
  It's quite a lot more jerky in Safari and Chrome.
  Looks like this is something the Webkit guys need to work on.
15. Re:Why is this tagged Chrome by kyrio · 2011-02-20 11:04 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, I dislike "professional" sports because it's a waste of money.
Chrome 11? by quantumphaze · 2011-02-19 11:34 · Score: 1

Didn't they just release Chrome 10 beta? It's still on the front page of Slashdot (at this time).

--
Unicode in Slashdot
1. Re:Chrome 11? by teh31337one · 2011-02-19 11:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'm on 11.0.672.2 dev. They have a stable release (9.x), a beta release (10.x), and a dev release(11.x).
2. Re:Chrome 11? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:05 · Score: 0
  
  There are different 'channels'; stable, beta, dev and canary build I think. Beta is at 10, dev is at 11.
3. Re:Chrome 11? by rtaylor · 2011-02-19 12:15 · Score: 1
  
  You can assume they're using a version currently under development.
  
  --
  Rod Taylor
All OSX browsers are really slow here by dotwhynot · 2011-02-19 11:37 · Score: 2

Kind of ironic when Apple is the company that is most vocal about HTML5 replacing Flash. http://developers.facebook.com/attachment/scores.png
1. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by inpher · 2011-02-19 11:57 · Score: 2
  
  They tested Chrome 11 and Firefox 4 and IE9 (all development versions) but not the development version of Safari: WebKit.
2. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by dakameleon · 2011-02-19 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  The fastest non-BETA browser is Safari 5 on OSX. Your point?
  
  --
  Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
3. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by inpher · 2011-02-19 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, I forgot, the latest stable Chrome on OS X is 9.0.597.102 which makes Chrome 10 a development version also. So unless Chrome 10 on Windows is a shipping stable version, then Safari is doing pretty well.
4. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  I have first hand experience that browsing is sub-par on OS X using any mainstream browser - Safari, Chrome, FF. I recently bought a top end Macbook Pro (Core i7 Nvidia 330M) and was very unimpressed with browsing performance - scrolling and page rendering mainly. I installed Win 7 and both Chrome and FF4 beta really shine in performance department - so much so that I am very reluctant to go back to OS X. FF4 it is explainable that the hardware acceleration may be making a difference but Chrome by default doesn't enable it and still feels great.
5. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by dakameleon · 2011-02-19 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  Chrome 10 is BETA; Chrome 11 is more like nightly/alpha.
  
  --
  Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
6. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  They didn't bother testing non-beta versions of Firefox or Chrome or *anything* on Linux or WinXP. This article is useless.
7. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by inpher · 2011-02-19 12:11 · Score: 2
  
  Still a development versions. Makes no sense to exclude development versions of Opera and Safari when they both are readily available.
8. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by DavidR1991 · 2011-02-19 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't this also because FF4 and IE9 both use hardware acceleration on Windows? (+ The points made already about comparing dev builds vs. stable)
9. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  Isn't this also because FF4 and IE9 both use hardware acceleration on Windows?
  Yes, and so? If it makes Win7 browsers 3 times as fast as OSX browsers.
10. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by DavidR1991 · 2011-02-19 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  So? Pretty bloody obvious why it's worth noting: the task is wholly graphical in nature, so obviously hardware acceleration will give IE9 and FF4 an advantage on Windows (and FF4 is not HW accelerated on OS X). So it's kind of a no-brainer why there's a huge discrepancy
11. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:40 · Score: 0
  
  So? Pretty bloody obvious why it's worth noting: the task is wholly graphical in nature, so obviously hardware acceleration will give IE9 and FF4 an advantage on Windows (and FF4 is not HW accelerated on OS X). So it's kind of a no-brainer why there's a huge discrepancy
  I agree it is interesting knowing why OSX browsers are so slow on HTML5, but it doesn't make the end result any different.
12. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  They didn't bother testing non-beta versions of Firefox or Chrome or *anything* on Linux or WinXP. This article is useless.
  WinXP is like IE6 - people still staying with a decade old system are clearly not interested in being up to date, so out of scope for this comparison.
13. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 13:11 · Score: 0
  
  Who cares why? The point is that OSX/HTML5 is slow, and the reason it's slow doesn't matter.
14. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 13:43 · Score: 0
  
  Sure they did.. if you follow the links you'll land at their facebook page where you'll find this at the bottom of their long posting:
  Tests were performed on a 2.4 GHz Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM under OS X 10.6.6, Windows 7 Enterprise under VMware, and Windows XP under VMware Fusion. We expect performance to only get better for Windows-based browsers when running on native hardware, but IE9 and Chrome were already quite impressive.
  Which makes it even worse for the Mac browsers, as they were running right on the OS, while the Windows ones were in a VM
  http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/html5-games-01-speedy-sprites/491691753919
15. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by dakameleon · 2011-02-19 14:05 · Score: 1
  
  My point was that Chrome 10 is still Beta on Windows. Absolutely agree with your main point that the other browsers deserved to have their dev versions tested too.
  
  --
  Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
16. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by dakameleon · 2011-02-19 14:38 · Score: 1
  
  TFA is not the one you've linked there. TFA:
  
  Benchmarking
  In order to talk about browser performance, we needed to standardize. We now have two machines that will be our testing machines:
  For OS X: a MacBook Pro laptop, currently OS X 10.6.6, 4GB of RAM, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, and NVIDIA GT 330M with 512MB of RAM.
  For Windows: a Lenovo T410s laptop, currently Windows 7 Enterprise, 4GB of RAM, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, and NVIDIA NVS 3100M with 512MB of RAM.
  Both of these laptops are significantly less powerful than the Mac Pro the original tests were run on. In addition, the 3100M offers approximately half the performance of the 330M.
  Additionally, even in the article you linked to, Safari was the fastest non-beta browser.
  
  --
  Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
17. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by newDzerzhinsky · 2011-02-19 15:24 · Score: 0
  
  So? Pretty bloody obvious why it's worth noting: the task is wholly graphical in nature, so obviously hardware acceleration will give IE9 and FF4 an advantage on Windows (and FF4 is not HW accelerated on OS X). So it's kind of a no-brainer why there's a huge discrepancy
  Ummm....but what difference does that make to the end results?
  That's like saying, "well, of course your car is faster because it's got a turbocharger"...If I wanna go fast, I'll take the one with the turbocharger, not worry about about the mechanics of how it goes fast.
  The complaint is only relevant if the turbocharger was available on the other car but wasn't used....Is hardware acceleration for any browsers available on OSX? (genuine question, I really don't know)
18. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by BZ · 2011-02-19 15:43 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, which is precisely the point. On Mac there is no way to easily do 2d hardware acceleration at the moment.
19. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by TorKlingberg · 2011-02-19 21:00 · Score: 1
  
  They used different hardware for Windows and OS X. It looks like the Mac is actually more powerful though, so the OSX browsers should score higher if they were equally efficient.
  
  * For OS X: a MacBook Pro laptop, currently OS X 10.6.6, 4GB of RAM, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, and NVIDIA GT 330M with 512MB of RAM.
  * For Windows: a Lenovo T410s laptop, currently Windows 7 Enterprise, 4GB of RAM, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, and NVIDIA NVS 3100M with 512MB of RAM.
20. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 21:07 · Score: 0
  
  Well, they've got to contend with OSX eating up resources. But then it's so "smooth looking". Apple sucks.
21. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by inpher · 2011-02-19 21:38 · Score: 2
  
  Core Animation is the way to animate 2D on Mac OS X (and iOS). It is what is used to animate CSS (which the article touches upon). From what I can tell reading various developer blogs Core Animation seems pretty well liked.
22. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by BZ · 2011-02-20 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is that Core Animation is too high-level. It wants to handle the entire animation itself, which makes it suitable for implementing CSS Transitions and CSS Animations (heck, the initial specs for those were basically "do what Core Animation does, because that's how we implemented it"), but not great for handling painting of web pages where you don't know what the web page will do next
  To put it in web terms, Core Animation is closer to being like SVG while Direct2D is closer to being like canvas. They both have their use cases, but do quite different things.
23. Re:All OSX browsers are really slow here by tlhIngan · 2011-02-21 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  They used different hardware for Windows and OS X. It looks like the Mac is actually more powerful though, so the OSX browsers should score higher if they were equally efficient.
  
  * For OS X: a MacBook Pro laptop, currently OS X 10.6.6, 4GB of RAM, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, and NVIDIA GT 330M with 512MB of RAM.
  * For Windows: a Lenovo T410s laptop, currently Windows 7 Enterprise, 4GB of RAM, 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, and NVIDIA NVS 3100M with 512MB of RAM.
  
  That makes no sense, really. Why use two different machines? Last I checked Boot Camp was perfectly well supported, and running them on the same machine would give far better results (and nice cross-OS comparisons, too).
  Hell, you can run Windows 7 on a Macbook Air these days (slightly tricky, but doable).
Time to upgrade by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 11:54 · Score: 0

Time to upgrade to Internet Explorer so I can't play any of these games (or visit Facebook)!
1. Re:Time to upgrade by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:14 · Score: 0
  
  IE9 (2nd place) edges out Chrome 11 (3rd place).
Facebook engineers? by FuckingNickName · 2011-02-19 12:06 · Score: 0

Sanitary engineers? Advertising consultants? What engineering does fb do???
1. Re:Facebook engineers? by maxume · 2011-02-19 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  They serve a massive number of complicated pages. They have been hiring people away from Google and such.
  
  --
  Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
2. Re:Facebook engineers? by dakameleon · 2011-02-19 12:10 · Score: 2
  
  Think in terms of "software engineers" - 500 million users is a hefty workload for any single site.
  
  --
  Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
3. Re:Facebook engineers? by FuckingNickName · 2011-02-19 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  complexity where? what is new in fb?
  Google does some cool engineering but much of its work involves only routine IT skills.
4. Re:Facebook engineers? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 12:33 · Score: 1
  
  If you're really so good at making sites that serve billions of page views per month, has fairly low latency across the globe despite the huge volume and variety of requests being processed, has marketed itself successfully to half a billion active users worldwide, interface with hundreds of thousands of third party apps, work on a range of mobile devices... and no matter how crude and low-tech the front-end UI may feel to the end user, IT WORKS. If all these are just "routine IT skills" for you - ok, great, just show me where you're on the Forbes list and I'll definitely pay my respects.
  
  If not, you're just a sore loser.
5. Re:Facebook engineers? by FuckingNickName · 2011-02-19 22:08 · Score: 2
  
  If you're really so good at making sites that serve billions of page views per month
  Creating a routine site which "serves billions of page views per month" is a routine IT skill. Hell, creating a routine site which serves millions of page views requires no expertise at all, and is something I'm sure lots of enthusiasts posting here have done before the days of point-and-click blogs and social networking sites. So, is Facebook routine?
  
  has fairly low latency across the globe despite the huge volume
  
  Fifteen years ago called. They want your cutting edge content delivery network research.
  
  has marketed itself successfully to half a billion active users worldwide
  No disagreement here. Facebook knows how to sell itself.
  
  interface with hundreds of thousands of third party apps
  Have you actually used the Facebook API? While this is the only "engineered" component of Facebook, it's (i.e. the Graph API is) basically a frontend to tables of personal information and junction/link tables between them. Again, the skill here is the routine deployment of an SQL database.
  
  work on a range of mobile devices.
  Well, not on mine, but I think what you meant was: at least vaguely tested on the devices commonly used by their employees with remaining complaints perhaps fixed eventually, and with a translation API suiting the native language of a few of the more common mobile platforms.
  
  nd no matter how crude and low-tech the front-end UI may feel to the end user, IT WORKS.
  Nonsense. It's in a perpetual state of beta, and if you haven't seen it not working it's because you haven't used it often enough to be targeted for testing - at which point something on the site will break for a while and will get fixed only because enough people whine.
  
  If all these are just "routine IT skills" for you - ok, great, just show me where you're on the Forbes list and I'll definitely pay my respects.
  Ah, the nerd of 2011, whose skill is measured by "where you're on the Forbes list".
  Facebook is successful because it successfully preys on the social weaknesses of the average human. As an engineering feat, it is almost completely uninteresting.
6. Re:Facebook engineers? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 03:52 · Score: 0
  
  and no matter how crude and low-tech the front-end UI may feel to the end user, IT WORKS.
  It works for low standards of works. Many times I've seen stuff like "photo 14 of 13" and duplicate posts. Scaling up is not as big an issue if your application can sacrifice consistency.
7. Re:Facebook engineers? by icebraining · 2011-02-20 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  Have you actually used the Facebook API? While this is the only "engineered" component of Facebook, it's (i.e. the Graph API is) basically a frontend to tables of personal information and junction/link tables between them. Again, the skill here is the routine deployment of an SQL database.
  They've actually develop their own non-relational database (Cassandra, now an Apache project).
  
  --
  Dilbert RSS feed
8. Re:Facebook engineers? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  I don't even know where to begin with your comments, friend. Calling Facebook's kind of processing "content delivery" is like saying mobile phones never did anything different from a TV. If you want to know how hard it is to make Facebook's kind of multi-user, global messaging and content upload fast and reliable... just look at Twitter and Digg. Twitter fucked it up early and were only able to process a few messages per second during the worst times. They had to massively overhaul their system 5 or 6 times to get to today's performance. Digg fucked up their transition to the newer tech. It's definitely not your usual MySQL admin task.
  
  Now, if you think you alone can do a better job than multiple high-profile, VC funded startups with very good access to the top talents in the Valley - not just via hiring, but also via the investors', ex-entrepreneurs' and engineers' connections... fine. If you're THAT good, you should be up to something and is laughing the VCs and Goldman Sachs all the way to the bank right now (the top ones like August Cap and Sequoia DO make very good investment returns for their LPs, mind you - not all of them are losers). In that case, show us the money or market share and we'll believe you. If not, go open your own startup and show us how it's done.
9. Re:Facebook engineers? by brantondaveperson · 2011-02-20 10:09 · Score: 1
  
  This is kind of a good point - no-one really cares that much if FBs pages break a little bit (as they often to, friends lists changing at random, comments not showing up, etc etc). You just refresh and (mostly) everything comes right.
  I'm not saying that FB isn't impressive, just that they don't have to hit especially high standards of data consistency in order to be a success.
10. Re:Facebook engineers? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-21 03:30 · Score: 0
  
  Get a load of this guy.
HTML5? by BenoitRen · 2011-02-19 12:23 · Score: 2

Except for the canvas element, there's not much HTML5 to be found here. It's mostly about DOM manipulation using JavaScript and about fancy new CSS styles.
1. Re:HTML5? by tepples · 2011-02-19 13:32 · Score: 2
  
  Except for the canvas element, there's not much HTML5 to be found here.
  It's precisely the 2D canvas that makes HTML5 game graphics practical.
2. Re:HTML5? by am+2k · 2011-02-19 23:13 · Score: 1
  
  It's precisely the 2D canvas that makes HTML5 game graphics practical.
  Wrong, canvas isn't suited for games in current browsers. Moving around divs is much faster and much easier (no need to do image loading manually, no need to handle redraws, etc). The only issue is alpha-aware hit testing, that's actually impossible with divs.
  See this presentation by Paul Backaus (the guy behind jQuery UI and a javascript game engine that was bought by Zynga) starting on slide 31.
  WebGL will change a lot there, when it's finally working in all major browsers (except IE of course).
Cost to switch from IE 6 vs. Windows XP by tepples · 2011-02-19 13:30 · Score: 0

WinXP is like IE6
No it isn't. There's a lot more switching cost involved. Switch from IE 6 to Firefox or Chrome, and the vast majority of web sites still work;* in fact, most work better. Switch from Windows XP Service Pack 3 to Ubuntu 10.10 with Wine from Software Center, and half your applications won't work. Unlike web sites, native applications are rarely tested by their developers on alternative implementations distributed as free software.
* Except possibly niche sites powered by ActiveX and visible only on your company's 192.168. But a lot more people are stuck on Windows for Win32 application compatibility than are stuck on IE 6 for its "features".
1. Re:Cost to switch from IE 6 vs. Windows XP by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 01:49 · Score: 0
  
  Apropos-of-nothing Ubuntu Guy! You're here! I knew you'd show up.
Re:HTML5 and Facebook? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 13:31 · Score: 0

OK, this is good, but look, my butt-crack smells like cheese. This is MY main concern. Seriously, like CHEESE.
Interesting. As a fan of "stinky cheese", I've tried many a cheesy delight that smells like butt-crack.
but did you ever eat a pussy that had too much cheese on that taco?
maybe CmdrTaco can command that tuna taco but no one else can.
Re:HTML5 and Facebook? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-19 14:05 · Score: 0

Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda is a Rump Rider. Knob Goblin. Pooper Pusher. Pillow Biter. If you get what I'm saying.
Rationalizing Bad Code by fatp · 2011-02-19 19:32 · Score: 1

Is Facebook releasing this to rationalize their creation of ineffective code?
1. Re:Rationalizing Bad Code by souravzzz · 2011-02-22 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  It is a comparison of HTML5 canvas drawing speed, fb uses no html5 for their webpages till now.
Flipping by tepples · 2011-02-20 01:53 · Score: 1

Moving around divs is much faster

One needs to horizontally flip an image when a character in a side-scrolling platformer faces the other way. Which browser can horizontally flip an image in a div? Otherwise, download size for sprite sheets doubles, as the server has to send both the unflipped and flipped versions of every cel.
1. Re:Flipping by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 03:18 · Score: 0
  
  canvas can be used to generate new image data and divs to display it via things like data URIs.
2. Re:Flipping by BZ · 2011-02-20 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  > Which browser can horizontally flip an image in a div?
  Any browser implementing CSS 2D Transforms (Firefox 3.5 or newer, Safari 3.2 or newer, Chrome at 7 and maybe even older, Opera 10.5 or newer, IE 9).
  So pretty much anything on the market that supports canvas supports transforms too.
3. Re:Flipping by tepples · 2011-02-20 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  But good luck getting users of IE 8 on Windows XP, which isn't getting IE 9, to convince their local administrators to install the Google Chrome Frame plug-in. Flash Player gets a free pass because far more web sites require it than require the HTML features that Chrome Frame has and IE 8 lacks.
4. Re:Flipping by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-20 13:10 · Score: 1
  
  You asked which browser supported horizontally flipping and image, and when shown that virtually every modern browser supports it, you responded with the one that doesn't. It would have been more gentlemanly to admit you were wrong.
5. Re:Flipping by BZ · 2011-02-20 14:44 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, but the original claim was that you have to do HTML5 games in canvas because you can't flip images otherwise. IE8 doesn't support canvas either, so if you're writing an HTML5 game with canvas you aren't targeting IE8 to start with.
Please clear this up by pokyo · 2011-02-21 00:21 · Score: 1

I'm ignorant when it comes to web programming. When creating games using HTML5 do developers need to be more concerned with code stealing than with Flash? There are already many duplicate games on the web, will this further compound the issue?
I apologize for being unclear by tepples · 2011-02-21 00:42 · Score: 1

when shown that virtually every modern browser supports it, you responded with the one that doesn't.
I apologize for being unclear. I should have written the following: "Half of users don't use a modern browser. Good luck convincing them to."