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Famo.us To Open Source Rendering Engine Replacement JavaScript Framework
snydeq writes "Famo.us has announced it will be open sourcing its framework for achieving native app performance within the browser, InfoWorld reports. 'Why so much fuss over another JavaScript framework? Mainly because it is unlike any other framework out there: Famo.us replaces the browser's rendering engine with its own, which is written entirely in JavaScript, and fuels it with the GPU acceleration provided by CSS's 3D transformation functions. Most any device these days that can run a modern browser — even a modest smartphone — has some kind of GPU supporting it, so why not leverage that? Armed with Famo.us, developers can maintain a single code base that performs well across many platforms.' Demo code is available on Codepen. Famo.us is also partnering with Firebase, a database as a service for mobile and Web apps."
<clippy> It looks like you're trying to use advanced CSS/javascript features that we don't support. Would you like to write a letter instead </clippy>
Native app performance? Yeah, right. Their examples are laggy even on a quad-core phone.
Too lazy to write a cross-platform website? No worry dawg, we put a browser in your browser, so you can suck while you suck.
"Most any device these days that can run a modern browser — even a modest smartphone — has some kind of GPU supporting it, so why not leverage that?"
Because it uses a lot of memory and is probably the fastest way to suck up RAM without being outright malicious.
Famo.us To Open Source Rendering Engine Replacement JavaScript Framework
That headline was generated using one of those marketing buzzword generators, wasn't it?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
...more CrappScript Crapps!
Thought your browser was slow enough as-is? Well, let's make a new rendering engine, written in CrappScript, that has to be rendered by the existing rendering engine! What could possibly go wrong? (Suddenly, your brand new Haswell i7 runs slower than a 286.)
That website is appalling, as is the code example.
Anybody who thinks that Javascript is the answer to anything has been asking the wrong question.
Runs very well on Chrome, Win 7, onboard ATI HD graphics.
Doesn't work on any other browser - redirected to /c/.
Slow on Chrome on the phone.
captcha: cheeeks
I wonder what impact this engine could have on the mobile frameworks out there ( JQM, PhoneJs etc ). The article states that they got the head mobile guy from Facebook. The next few months could get very interesting in that world.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Famo.us replaces the browser's rendering engine with its own, which is written entirely in JavaScript, and fuels it with the GPU acceleration provided by CSS's 3D transformation functions.
To me, that sounds very much like the direction in which Chrome/Blink is heading - shrink the C++ codebase and improve all things Javascripty by removing the costly native/JS boundaries (allowing the browser, for example, to do interprocedural optimizations between the page code and the DOM routines etc.). Except that Blink at least sounds reputable. :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
Works impressively well on an iPad. I dunno though if it would be any slower just doing it with html5 directly?
s/performs well across many platforms/performs well only on platforms with GPU accelerated browsers supporting new CSS3 3D standards (but this is still a working draft, so not an official standard). Doesn't work at all on platforms without said support/
For the Dalvik version which can run on an Android simulator in Eclipse under
Windows 8, churning away within Virtualbox on a Mac OS X.
http://xkcd.com/927/
Let me translate the article:
Famo.us built a Javascript framework for rendering.
They expected to sell their technology to Google.
Their plan backfired, because nobody was interested into their product, and they had no interesting application.
So they "open-sourced" their framework (since it's Javascript, it's already "open-source"), in the hope that some users will come up with a brilliant application, and that their product will have a real value (and so that the company will be saleable).
While their concept is interesting, I very much doubt that it will ever have a market value.
It's an existing product searching for its market, instead of a product designed for an identified market.
I c.an pu.t ina.pprop.riate punctua.tion in my wr.iting too.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
For 3D-related stuff I like three.js: http://threejs.org/
Use it in my project: http://github.com/movitto/omega
Doesn't seem to work with javascript disabled.
Runs nicely on my work laptop:
Chrome 31
Asus X550CC
Nvidia 720M chipset
2ghz Core i7U
8gb of RAM
But please, can someone explain how the REPLACED the browser rendering engine? The way I see it this is just a js framework that will abstract stuff for you and make you think at the code level that you're working with objects on a scene and not nodes in the DOM.
Kinda like threejs maybe.
I can still see div's and other usual html elements there, not even a canvas.
So I suspect the browser still renders stuff, html that the framework will generate for you. It's not clear to me what they are replacing from what the browser usually does.
Curiously yours, crip.