How Converting A C++ Game to JavaScript Gave Us WebAssembly (ieee.org)

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How Converting A C++ Game to JavaScript Gave Us WebAssembly (ieee.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday December 2, 2017 @12:49PM from the turbocharging-the-web dept.

Slashdot reader Beeftopia shares "a detailed history of WebAssembly...from one of the developers." IEEE Spectrum reports that "Like a lot of stories about tech innovation, this one started with video games." [Mozilla's Alon Zakai] wanted to take a game he had helped write in C++ and convert it to JavaScript code that would run well on the Web. This was in 2010, and back then, converting C++ to JavaScript was unthinkable... so he started working to adapt an open-source tool that could translate C++ code into JavaScript automatically. He called his project Emscripten... we were able to formalize the permitted JavaScript patterns, to make the contract between Emscripten and the browser completely clear. We named the resulting subset of JavaScript asm.js... I would optimize the JavaScript engine in Firefox to run the resulting code even faster...

This brings us to the present... Emscripten can take code written in C++ and convert it directly into WebAssembly. And there will be ways in time to run other languages as well, including Rust, Lua, Python, Java, and C#. With WebAssembly, multimillion-line code bases can now load in a few seconds and then run at 80 percent of the speed of native programs. And both load time and execution speed are expected to improve as the browser engines that run the code are made better.
They'd started with a C++ game because "If we could make games run well on the Web, other computationally intensive applications would soon follow."

The article -- by Mozilla software engineer Luke Wagner -- remembers that the name Emscripten was a "a mash-up of 'script' from JavaScript and 'embiggen' from the TV show The Simpsons."

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I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 12:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

With WebAssembly, multimillion-line code bases can now load in a few seconds and then run at 80 percent of the speed of native programs.
You appear to believe that is a good thing, in a web browser.
1. Re:I see the problem. by Gavagai80 · 2017-12-02 13:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It is a good thing, for a handful of uses, which you might run into once a year. Unfortunately the other 99.99999% of the time it'll be used to create monstrosities which every website will shove down your throat.
  
  --
  This space intentionally left blank
2. Re:I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:16 · Score: 0
  
  I'm curious if I could use this to background mine BTC on people's machines that visit my website? I'd be interested in doing this for BTC. But without my power consumption. It would be like a toll. Or a gratuity, maybe a gift.
3. Re:I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:26 · Score: 0
  
  You mean something like this?
4. Re:I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:00 · Score: 0
  
  It's bullshit really.
  What WebAssembly results in, is going to fucking difficult to trace malware.
  Plus, who the fuck plays games in the web browser. I have a hard time trying to figure out why anyone would want to to port something to Javascript, only to have the browser crash, maintain no state, and thus have to start over as if the player never played the game. Plus there's issues like pressing keys that activate the web browser features. That's all you need is someone hitting backspace at the "Name your bro" prompt and you just "hit back" in the browser, and fucked up your progress.
  Like even nw.js, there are games that are written in Javascript for this, but they're largely games that make use of web features that otherwise would require writing networking code in a stand-alone piece of software. nw.jw makes sense for creating an "app" environment on a desktop, to give it feature parity with a mobile device (did I actually just say that? yuck)
  That is the problem with targeting the browser. Don't target the fucking browser. Everything that runs in the browser is slow, hackable, and "empty the cache" destroys your progress.
5. Re:I see the problem. by Anne+Thwacks · 2017-12-02 21:11 · Score: 1
  
  who the fuck plays games in the web browser.
  The extremely gullible - ie the target most marketeers would give their eye-teeth for
  
  --
  Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
6. Re:I see the problem. by serviscope_minor · 2017-12-02 21:25 · Score: 1
  
  The extremely gullible - ie the target most marketeers would give their eye-teeth for
  That doesn't make any sense.
  People who want to play a game that happens to be written for a browser play games in a broswer. It's a portable platform for better or worse which provides graphics, sound and keyboard input.
  i.e. it provides far more than the minimum needed for videogames.
  And some people write games for it just because the can and those ones tend to be pretty good.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
7. Re:I see the problem. by jeremyp · 2017-12-02 23:05 · Score: 1
  
  If only computer languages could be used for something other than games. Oh, wait, they can.
  The fact that this makes it possible to use languages other than Javascript in the browser should be a cause for rejoicing.
  
  --
  All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
8. Re:I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  why anyone would want to to port something to Javascript, only to have the browser crash, maintain no state, and thus have to start over as if the player never played the game.
  a) Web browsers can store local state.
  b) C++ can crash, too.
  
  Plus there's issues like pressing keys that activate the web browser features. That's all you need is someone hitting backspace at the "Name your bro" prompt and you just "hit back" in the browser, and fucked up your progress.
  If only there were something like "event.preventDefault()" to prevent that. Oh, wait...
  I'm not a massive fan of JavaScript but at least get your facts right.
9. Re: I see the problem. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  That was the second use of the technology....
Sounds like a dumb ass by Snotnose · 2017-12-02 12:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

if you are halfway competent in C/C++ you can see at a glance what a steaming pile Javascript is. Especially the 2010 version of Javascript.

I don't like C++ for various reasons, but the only language in a good 40 years of programming I've learned to hate is Javascript.
1. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:05 · Score: 0
  
  Everyone sane turns it off anyway except on a whitelist basis.
  Who wants 50 random 3rd party domains running tracking and adware shit every time you connect to a web site?
2. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Ultra64 · 2017-12-02 13:12 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot to yell "Get off my lawn!" while waving your cane.
3. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2017-12-02 13:13 · Score: 1
  
  So what's up next . . . ? Erlang . . . ? There's still probably a pretty big pile of FOTRAN waiting around to be WebAssembled.
  Hey, and what about all that IBM 360 mainframe code that's been running since the 60's . . . ? Although, IBM probably has that code wrapped up in some legal shackles, so you can't do anything with it, except run it on a newer mainframe.
  Maybe we could start WebAssembling JavaScript code . . . ?
  
  --
  Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
4. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:37 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  This "dumb ass" basically did what Google's NaCl engineers couldn't do, and helped find an agreeable migration path for web browsers to alter their existing VMs to support other languages. Thanks to him, contrarian fogeys may finally be able to shut the fuck up about JS in a few years. And I consider that a MAJOR win for everyone's sanity.
5. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by GuB-42 · 2017-12-02 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  He probably talked about the language itself, not the way it is used.
  JS is used for more than just webpages, even if it is, by far, its most common use. And ads and tracking are not only JS. On Android, it's Java, on iOS, it is Objective C or Swift.
6. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Wow, modern /.ers really like to dump on people doing fun projects, never mind completely missing the point of the article. Did you even read TFS before making up your knee-jerk response?
7. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 14:17 · Score: 0
  
  Did you even read TFS before making up your knee-jerk response?
  It's considered bad form on /. to read TFS before commenting. After all, you wouldn't want facts to get in you way of your opinions.
8. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Snotnose · 2017-12-02 14:34 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I've got some C++ on a microcontroller that detects kids on my lawn and does the yelling for me. Had I written it in Javascript it would activate twice as often for no good reason, and miss real issues 50% of the time.
9. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:19 · Score: 0
  
  Never touched perl or PHP then, I see.
10. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Billly+Gates · 2017-12-02 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  Woosh
  Let's ignore software distribution, access rights to your own computer (if this is a school or work PC), phones, tablets, other platforms, etc.
  If C++ was all in why don't we see these win32 apps on Linux or MacOSX if it was so easy and portable?
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
11. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Billly+Gates · 2017-12-02 16:26 · Score: 1
  
  Erlang man is what all the cool kids use now PYSCHO BITCH
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
12. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by epyT-R · 2017-12-02 16:40 · Score: 0
  
  no. javascript is still a piece of shit and the concept of the scriptable browser continues to be a security nightmare. The only thing web 'assembly' does is make the malware/bitcoin miner run faster for the attacker.
13. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:43 · Score: 0
  
  They are called applications you imbecile, and the reason, is that cpp is not an interpreted language. Ergo, you trade portability for speed. JS "runs" on a multitude of devices because it does so in a VM, and it's disgustingly inefficient at it.
14. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by epyT-R · 2017-12-02 16:47 · Score: 1
  
  Unless of course it's the article that positions opinion as fact...eg 99% of the political articles posted here.
15. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 17:10 · Score: 0
  
  The "only" thing, huh? Sure thing. Tell you what, I'll be over here suffering all those bitcoin miners and getting no benefits at all from my modern browsers, and you can go right on back to 1993 and enjoy your fancy new "bookmarks" and "image tags". Give up all of the convenience these "nightmares" have brought you, and show us how much better it was. Hell, it was a bad idea for our ancestors to have ever even left the oceans, if we follow such ridiculous reductionist nonsense.
16. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 17:53 · Score: 0
  
  The few people who actually have any facts are drowned out by shit posts. People used to complain about the editors - I think the real problem is the readers (if we can call them that - nobody reads TFA).
17. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:09 · Score: 0
  
  Not even that, the vast majority of C and C++ code is full of bugs, from things like doublefree, buffer overflows, missing casts, memory leaks, etc. Have you ever seen a single open source project compile with zero warnings? If yes, they probably turned the warnings off rather than fix the bugs. I have not once seen a perfectly clean project.
  So apply this shitty code to emscriptem webassembly, and now you've created virtually unlimited security holes that will not be patchable. Never mind the browser's inability to maintain state, and overriding input.
  Even latency, there is no way you're going to make the next "mario" platformer running inside a browser that has 50ms (3-4 frames) of input to render latency.
  At best, you'll see software that was previously unportable (eg think mp3 encoders and stuff like that) due to GPL licencing or patents, and thus give people a way to do basically violate the licenses with out leaving any evidence.
18. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by epyT-R · 2017-12-02 18:17 · Score: 1
  
  bookmarks? Sure beats wading through the mountains of pointless clickfests modern 'UX' designed sites have brought us.
  Reductionist? Nah, the problem is the bloat inherent in needless expansionism. Now we have slow, overwrought versions of applications that were already been-there-done-that in 1995, except now they're on a remote site that can change/disappear tomorrow, is loaded with ads/malware, and we get to pay 'subscription' fees for this wonderful 'convenience.'
19. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:34 · Score: 0
  
  Converting code has been done for years dumbass. Just most people with such knowledge would prefer to not touch JS with a 10 foot poll.
  It's generally considered a complete clusterfuck so why would anyone do it when they have better things to do with their time?
  And yes, I myself have written a number of such tools. Never wrote one to convert to JS because literally WTF man?
20. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 19:29 · Score: 0
  
  Had I written it in Javascript it would freeze the lawn before crashing it.
  
  FTFY
21. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 19:47 · Score: 0
  
  Never touched perl or PHP then, I see.
  It's Javascript that is hated, not JS devs. Those guys wouldn't be crazy-sexy-cool if they weren't crazy. And FWIW, I've never seen Perl or PHP crash a browser. Craigslist, for example, is fast and stable, and though it might be ugly, so are you.
22. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Anne+Thwacks · 2017-12-02 21:06 · Score: 1
  
  so why would anyone do it when they have better things to do with their time?
  They don't - that is why the need to make the code run 20% slower!
  
  --
  Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
23. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 23:39 · Score: 1
  
  But it's so easy with Javascript if you use jQuery.
  $('kids').on('myLawn').yell("Get off!")
24. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 00:15 · Score: 1
  
  argh, come on man, CALLBACKS!
  var kids_on_lawn=function(o,c){
  if(o.onLawn===true){
  c(null,'GET OFF MY LAWN');
  }else{ c(null,true); }
  };
  you can also do it asynchronously to take advantage of modern multi core CPU's
  var yell=function(o,c){ alert('get off my lawn '+o.name); if(c){c(null,true);}else{return true;} };
  var kids=['andy','jane','tod'];
  var operations=[];
  kids.forEach(function(name){ operations.push(async.apply(yell,{name:name})); });
  async.parallel(operations,function(err,res){});
25. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by angel'o'sphere · 2017-12-03 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  But it would yell in a very deep monster voice!
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
26. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Zero__Kelvin · 2017-12-03 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. If someone had done this and just showed it off on their blog it would be a "fun project", but as it stands it has affected us all, so we have every right to criticize it if we don't like the impact it is having.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
27. Re: Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 03:46 · Score: 0
  
  â===â ... hahaha FUCK JAVASCRIPT
28. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 04:47 · Score: 0
  
  "Well, *I* like feature X, so it's not bloat. Fuck what everyone else wants, they're 'dumbasses'."
  So yes, reductionist. What you call "needless expansionism" was clearly needed by other people, even if it has the same associated risks that every big advancement does.
  You can continue living in your own little bubble if you'd like, that's fine. But calling others dumbasses because you don't have the foresight to see that people want technology to do more for us, not less, makes you a bit of a dumbass as well.
29. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  > You forgot to yell "Get off my lawn!" while waving your cane.
  I ain't fer it, I'm agin' it!
30. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by gbjbaanb · 2017-12-03 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  surely
  $(""#my street" house[lawn]").on("change", ".kids", function() { yell ("get off my lawn") ) });
  (so that's in the area of my street identified, the lawn attribute as part of the house element has an event handler attached that looks for changes to it from items of class "kids" and calls a function to do some yelling. Frankly, its starting to make perl look sane.
  and the whole thing has to be placed well away from the lawn, in order to use security measures like content security policy that prevents inline js from being modified and so the code is totally separate from the markup UI (which might be a good thing) except that the code is now totally distant from the UI so if you try to debug someone else's code, you're in a world of "where did that come from?" guesswork. Awesome, and don;t try to debug it because you'll only go down the rabbit hole that is jQuery to find where it thinks the JS event is attached from, and won't easily tell you where the frigging handler is to debug.
31. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by brantondaveperson · 2017-12-03 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  I couldn't disagree more. Javascript is an excellent language, elegant and simple, and a joy to write code in. Building UIs in HTML and CSS is a bit of a pain, and websites that use excessive javascript where none might be necessary are certainly annoying, but neither of those things are anything to do with the language itself.
  It's quite different to C++ obviously, but differences in languages encourage you to think differently about problems, which is normally a good thing. WebAssembly, on the other hand, seems to be re-inventing various things, and re-attacking already solved problems, such as how to build a simple and fast VM (see Lua's VM, for instance).
32. Re:Sounds like a dumb ass by EETech1 · 2017-12-03 10:29 · Score: 1
  
  10 PRINT "GET OFF MY LAWN!"
  20 GOTO 10
  stupid lameness filter
My new WebAssembly project by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:02 · Score: 0

I am beginning a project to port the Linux kernel to webassembly.
After I've got that and the userspace up, I'll work on compiling Firefox.
1. Re:My new WebAssembly project by theweatherelectric · 2017-12-02 13:11 · Score: 0
  
  I am beginning a project to port the Linux kernel to webassembly.
  No need. JSLinux already runs Linux in the browser. JSLinux can also run Windows 2000
2. Re:My new WebAssembly project by RightwingNutjob · 2017-12-02 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  No systemd joke?
3. Re:My new WebAssembly project by Megol · 2017-12-02 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  Great, that way you'd be able to run Linux!
4. Re: My new WebAssembly project by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:20 · Score: 0
  
  Linux , the new replacement for Emacs self bootstrapping
5. Re:My new WebAssembly project by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2017-12-02 13:46 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Pottering has stated that systemd’s web browser won’t be ready until mid-2018 at the earliest.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
6. Re:My new WebAssembly project by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 14:05 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Anazing! That's only a decade before systemd logging will work right. How will they trace the errors?
  Oh, wait, it's systemd. It doesn't *report* its own errors and the changes it makes to your system behind your back.
7. Re:My new WebAssembly project by angel'o'sphere · 2017-12-02 20:34 · Score: 1
  
  I think we have a linux running javascript based 'VM' in the browser since over ten years.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Incredible by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:02 · Score: 0

multimillion-line code bases can now load in a few seconds and then run at 80 percent of the speed of native programs
That is incredible, what an achievement.
1. Re:Incredible by theweatherelectric · 2017-12-02 13:57 · Score: 1
  
  what an achievement
  It is. It's ideal for running emulators for projects like the Internet Archive's MS-DOS software library or their console video game collection.
2. Re: Incredible by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:26 · Score: 0
  
  Better to be a retard that actually posts useful information than an anti-social asshole. Yes, I was talking about you, in case you missed it.
3. Re: Incredible by tepples · 2017-12-02 17:14 · Score: 1
  
  The lack of indication of tone of voice in text makes it unreliable for a reader to distinguish deadpan sarcasm from sincerity.
4. Re:Incredible by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  Oh yes, it is. If anyone had wanted to run the IA's MS-DOS software library or their console video game collection, they would have naturally gravitated towards writing Chrome, IE and JavaScript themselves. That's how ideal it is.
Re:converted by Njorthbiatr · 2017-12-02 13:12 · Score: 1

The... Web?
And this is how JavaScript dies by DeplorableCodeMonkey · 2017-12-02 13:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

And there will be ways in time to run other languages as well, including Rust, Lua, Python, Java, and C#
It's only a matter of time before TypeScript skips JavaScript and goes straight to WebAssembly. When Python and Ruby can cleanly target WebAssembly and the DOM, it's game over for JavaScript. What'll happen is quite simple. The people who are decent and kinda like JavaScript will jump to TypeScript. Everyone else will write code in something like Python or Ruby. In fact, I'll say right now that I expect that Facebook will rewrite React and GraphQL in TypeScript or one of those languages within no more than a few years of WebAssembly being supported in all browsers.
1. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 13:43 · Score: 0
  
  It's not going to die. It's going to remain the lowest-barrier-to-entry language of the web for the foreseeable future, just where it belongs. We're just opening the floodgates to people writing their shitty web apps in whatever shitty language they want, rather than just "the one that people complain about because it's not the shitty language they like the most."
2. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 14:12 · Score: 0
  
  Facebook barely uses javascript. I mean it does, but certainly not to its full potential.
  If they really wanted to utilize the language they would stop using APACHE web servers and start using nodejs. At least then they could use websockets to stop the long polling madness.
  Basically because websites were designed to use get/post and then display something just once in a static manner in order to get dynamic updates for chat etc you need to constantly send queries to the server asking 'do you have new data?' since the server cannot use get/post to pulse out that it has new data. Websockets on the other hand can send out a data pulse saying 'hello I have new data now'.
  The other advanage is that with a websocket you get to utilize all the 65,000 some odd what ports available for simultaneous connections, where as with php (unless you modify it) it can only handle 600 simultaneous connections.
  Quite frankly the whole thing would consume less power and you wouldn't need 1/16th of a frigging nuclear reactor (no kidding, thats how much juice a data center uses). Which would be a boon. Hey though, lets keep shitting on javascript and totally forget about apache and php because their SOOOOO great...
3. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Snotnose · 2017-12-02 14:24 · Score: 1
  
  Pray pray pray.
  
  I think you're wrong.
  
  pray pray pray pray pray pray
  
  Javescript/Ecmascript (giving it a real name, a spec, and a couple books doesn't make it better) really needs to die.
4. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 14:44 · Score: 0
  
  I can also see hundreds of companies enacting a server/client DRM nightmare.
5. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 15:32 · Score: 0
  
  I think you and many others hate on javascript because of its uses for advertisement. I get this feeling you guys are deluding yourselves into believing that if we all started using rust, or c++ that suddenly advertisements would just magically vanish and we would ride off into the sunset on a unicorn with a magical golden mane that made us orgasm if we rub it against our eyebrows or something.
  Javascript is what it is because it needs to be plain text which makes it inherantly open. Compiled code would run faster but it definately would NOT improve things, if it was obfuscated into binary that would be a hell of a lot worse than obfuscating it via minification.
  Perhaps its the way the language treats things like being able to just say var number=1; instead of float number=1? Which really just seems more about splitting petty hairs than anything to do with anything at all.
  Perhaps it is that with javascript you can run on ANY device, and ANY operating system with a standards compliant web browser? Ahhh...see that seems much more likely to me, you can feel the horde coming to eat you, that feels more correct, you don't hate the language, you fear it because of it's ability to enable.
6. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:34 · Score: 0
  
  No, it's just that there are a lot of us that have to write something other than web apps. Let me know when you get a device driver up and running in JS.
7. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:14 · Score: 0
  
  Nope.
  What will happen is that advertisements and rootkits will be written in whatever language is convienent, obfucated and encrypted in a C/C++ wrapper, and then pushed to the web browser without any ability to determine if it's a cryptocoin miner, or just a recompiled flash runtime and advertisement.
  WebAssembly is where web standards go to die.
8. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:52 · Score: 0
  
  I honestly would never bother writing a device driver. It just isn't in my nature and it bores me though I know that it is vital and important work.
  I did learn .net, c, c++, COBOL, php, bash scripting, dos scripting and a lot of other stuff.
  Nothing really let me reach out and create independently like javascript. I did not need to pay anyone to write javascript, I did not need to purchase a license for it. It allowed me to reach out with a virtual hand and the promise that I could touch this world with my work in a way nothing else could.
  I was not locked into weird arbitrary compiler rules or had a lot of odd code tacked on to my creation. I did not need to worry about a distribution channel. It was such glorious freedom to create that I could not resist it and I fell in love.
  We are not the same in what we create, but we are creators. Perhaps I use a pastel set while you use fine paints and brushes if we wanted to get metaphorical. Still we are of a sort, and this crusade that has been launched against such a thing that has empowered me, I do not understand it, you lot are my brethren and you tear at this thing that enables me to be a part of creating such amazing things, extending me beyond myself.
  I would never break an artists brushes and call them rubbish for the boring, I would not expect you to smash my pastel set underfoot and call it a childish toy. We should stop this bashing of javascript, we should be united. With nodejs I can launch and return results from compiled programs, together we could build amazing things.
  Some of my favorite works were by the artists salvidor dali and H.R. Giger. Those artists found each other and combined their strengths to create beautiful masterpieces that they could not alone each locked within their own specialty.
  The community at large should cease this internal attempt to turn javascript into the omega wolf of the pack, it is just as vital and just as wonderful as anything else, and it's abilities to reach across the gaps of operating systems and devices make it a powerful tool and worthy of respect as any other tool.
9. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by h33t+l4x0r · 2017-12-02 19:59 · Score: 1
  
  There's no need for that. You can write it in any version of javascript you want and transpile it to any other version when you deploy.
10. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 09:39 · Score: 0
  
  ride off into the sunset on a unicorn with a magical golden mane that made us orgasm if we rub it against our eyebrows or something.
  That's quite.... detailed.
11. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-04 03:32 · Score: 0
  
  Facebook barely uses javascript
  You're aware of React and Redux?
12. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by evileeyore · 2017-12-04 13:48 · Score: 1
  
  Sooooo you are flaming something simply because you never use it? why would anyone ever try to write a device drive in JS? Thats like trying to ask someone to screw in a screw with a hammer. Use the language that most fits the job at hand. Nothing about this post is advocating that JS be used for everything.. its a tool designed for a specific purpose.
13. Re:And this is how JavaScript dies by evileeyore · 2017-12-04 13:49 · Score: 1
  
  Redux isn't facebook's but yes :)
How hard can this be? by Blackeneth · 2017-12-02 14:45 · Score: 5, Funny

JavaScript only has 6 commands:
create_message_box_subscribe_to_my_newsetter()
create_message_box_take_our_survey()
create_message_box_our_cookie_policy()
create_message_box_allow_us_to_send_notifications()
create_message_box_behind_browser_advertisement()
create_message_box_behind_browser_clickbait()

--
-- Knowledge is power. -- Francis Bacon
1. Re:How hard can this be? by jeremyp · 2017-12-02 23:36 · Score: 1
  
  You forgot
  create_message_box_use_your_location()
  
  --
  All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
2. Re:How hard can this be? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-04 02:20 · Score: 0
  
  also prompt_to_like_or_subscribe_hashtag_me()
"Insightful"? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 15:59 · Score: 0

I have no idea why people modded you insightful for this.
The title was a needless, baseless insult. Not insightful but rather petty.
The body was irrelevant bitching about Javascript being crap. Not insightful but rather obvious -- or did you think you were the first person to notice that JS was shit?
You failed to address the elephant in the room: Javascript is the language of the web browser platform. They did something useful with it while you whined. Congratulations.
Ugh by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:04 · Score: 0

I really hate all the douche bags today that feel the need to use multiple periods between sentences. Hell, they use them between phrases even. Please, for the love of literacy, fucking stop!
it's a perfectly cromulent word by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 16:30 · Score: 0

it's a perfectly cromulent word
People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-02 17:11 · Score: 5, Informative

You failed to address the elephant in the room: Javascript is the language of the web browser platform.
I think the idea is that a lot of people who regularly post comments on Slashdot and SoylentNews don't want the web browser to be an application platform. They see the web as documents, not applications. They point out that much is achievable through link navigation, form submission, and CSS, such as a script-free version of the "Fast Good Cheap" 2-of-3 checkbox demo. If they wanted an application more sophisticated than that, they would download its source code, compile it, and install it.
1. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:39 · Score: 0
  
  It's worse than that.
  JS was a horrible platform from the beginning. The only reason it's staggering forward and managing to turn into a slightly better monster is because idiots keep thinking they're brilliant when they add more to that clusterfuck. If it wasn't for fools punting it forward the whole way we would have way better stuff.
  Seriously... It's no different than someone punting VBA or AppleSoft Basic forward because they can and refuse to listen to the fact that there's better stuff out there.
  Everyone I've ever met who loves JS was a lackluster developer amazed at moving a simple box around the screen or displaying simple text.
2. Re:People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 21:47 · Score: 0
  
  The web browser hasn't been for just "Documents" since 1991.
  In fact, the entire _point_ of the WWW was to make the Internet for more than Documents - you could get documents on Gopher and FTP.
3. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 22:03 · Score: 0
  
  You literally have no idea what you're talking about.
  You can't understand the difference between a language and the use people put it to.
  Javascript isn't a perfect language, but no language is. And it's way better than a few out there. (And way worse than a few others).
  The most important thing is. It's here, it's in every browser on every device, and you can program in it now.
  And what's more, Javascript is the language that has brought us back to (and beyond) the point where every computer had a programming language and development tools ready to go, out of the box.
  The Development Tools in Chrome and Firefox (and even Edge), give everyone the power to start programming right now.
  BASIC (particular in the form it took in the 80s) was a terrible language, but without it, an entire generation would never have learnt to program.
  Javascript is the first language to come close to taking that crown from BASIC.
4. Re:People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 22:14 · Score: 0
  
  You failed to address the elephant in the room: Javascript is the language of the web browser platform.
  Unfortunately this is true. Something lighter-weight (in terms of boiler plate) than Java might be nice, but a better behaved language than Javascript would also be good.
5. Re:People who see the web as documents by roca · 2017-12-02 22:55 · Score: 1
  
  Having an application platform that isn't controlled by a single vendor, has no gatekeeper, and can run on any device --- and actually has a huge number of apps --- is incredibly important. The Web is that.
  People who don't want the web browser to be an application platform are welcome to disable Javascript in their browser. I'm happy to leave it on.
6. Re: People who see the web as documents by c6gunner · 2017-12-03 00:07 · Score: 1
  
  Having an application platform that isn't controlled by a single vendor, has no gatekeeper, and can run on any device --- and actually has a huge number of apps --- is incredibly important. The Web is that.
  Um, yeah, the WEB is that. The web is not your browser.
  Applications run server side and the output displays in your browser. There's absolutely no good reason to be writing the goddamn application to actually execute in your browser.
7. Re:People who see the web as documents by religionofpeas · 2017-12-03 00:23 · Score: 2
  
  That script free version is ugly and slow, even for a trivial example.
8. Re: People who see the web as documents by religionofpeas · 2017-12-03 00:25 · Score: 1
  
  There's absolutely no good reason to be writing the goddamn application to actually execute in your browser.
  Yes there is. It's much more efficient.
9. Re: People who see the web as documents by c6gunner · 2017-12-03 00:49 · Score: 1
  
  JavaScript.
  Efficient.
  Pick one.
10. Re: People who see the web as documents by angel'o'sphere · 2017-12-03 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  While I agree that there is to much JS horrorr in modern browsers, there are plenty of reasons to have part of the logic as JS in the browser.
  One is scalability. Keep in mind the 'power of JS' with libraries like jquerry, reactJS etc. come from the fact that browser vendors could not agree on standards. Erm ... could not agree to implement and adhere to standards.
  As soon as you give someone a tool, like a 'nice JS library' he has it easier to 'abuse' the tool than to learn the underlying principles of the domain.
  Well, I only use JS forr real programming, controlling Eclise, the debugger, downloading code for tests on hardware etc.
  I avoid web programming like the plague, unless it is done in GWT (browser heavy) or Vaadin (back end heavy). The programming model of Vaadin, I really like, though.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
11. Re: People who see the web as documents by c6gunner · 2017-12-03 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  Alright, I was over generalising; I HAVE done web development, and yes, there are times when (properly done) JS is useful and actually adds value either in terms of user experience or efficiency.
  However, I also run NoScript in Firefox because the overwhelming majority of JS code out there adds nothing but bloat and constant tracking. Unfortunately, unlike the sites which I developed, many modern sites end up being unusuable or severely crippled without JavaScript enabled, which is a constant source of annoyance for me.
  I guess the tl;dr version of that is that JavaScript in the browser is a sometimes useful tool which has caused far more harm than good. At this point I would gladly give up the little utility it provides in order to get rid of all the crap that comes with it.
12. Re: People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-03 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  Applications run server side and the output displays in your browser. There's absolutely no good reason to be writing the goddamn application to actually execute in your browser.
  Running part of an application on the client allows for three things:
  Drag as an input Script-free HTML has a control for coordinate input, namely the ismap attribute of the <img> element. But it takes only clicks, not drags, making it unwieldy to (say) draw a curve on an image. Immediate validation of input without repeated full page reloads Reloads are costly in both time and data transfer charges imposed by the ISP. In the example of a script-free drawing application, every time you click on the image to make a revision, it has to download the entire image anew, not just the changed portion. Nor is it fun to fill out an HTML form multiple screens long only to submit the thing and discover that you made some easily preventable inconsistent input several screens ago, such as a date in an unrecognizable format, start and end dates out of order, or two passwords that do not match. Real-time communication with other users of an application Script-free HTML makes it unwieldy to (say) wait for new messages sent by other users of a chat room and display them once they arrive or to display things drawn by other users of a collaborative whiteboard as they draw them.
  Or would these three things be grounds for requiring each user to download the application, compile it, and install it, if it's even ported to the operating system of the user's device?
13. Re:People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-03 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  A patch to its CSS to make it less ugly is welcome.
14. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 05:24 · Score: 0
  
  That alternative scenario sounds suspiciously like the app store problem on phones!
15. Re:People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 10:21 · Score: 0
  
  Eh, it's faster than about 95 % of the web sites I frequent.
  About 100 % of the commercial web sites, actually.
16. Re: People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-03 10:43 · Score: 1
  
  JavaScript less runtime-efficient than writing six C++14 apps, one for each platform (Win32, UWP, macOS, X11/Linux, iOS, Android). But it's more programmer time-efficient, and it's more efficient than requiring full page reloads of the web IRC gateway every 15 seconds in case someone in an IRC channel typed a new message.
17. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 11:53 · Score: 0
  
  Except I do know what I’m talking about moron.
  Every language has monstrosities produced from it sure and every language has its work of art. In fact your defense harkens back to the early Basic languages which is exactly what I’m talking about stupid.
  The early Basics and JS are decent intro languages but just because you can get something to limp along doesn’t mean either you or the language are actually decent. In fact they can be dangerous because of this one fact alone.
  Also something you’re missing is its not exactly hard to find tools for development. So having a good ‘intro language’ in fact isn’t necessary at all. So its one and only plus, which you yourself admit to, isn’t even important. At all.
  JS started as a dumb ‘me too’ language, which no one really cared about, and it will die that way. Heck even its name is a bad joke.
  Even JS’s allies are trying to bury the thing ultimately.
18. Re: People who see the web as documents by angel'o'sphere · 2017-12-04 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  Well,
  I'm not a fan of JS in the browser.
  I'm actually not a fan of web apps either. I mean, web sites that try to behave like an app/program.
  I think this is more a 'how should the web work' question than a JS question.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
19. Re: People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-04 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  Would you rather have a web app or a Mac-only app?
  Or if your primary computer is a Mac:
  Would you rather have a web app or a Windows-only app?
20. Re: People who see the web as documents by evileeyore · 2017-12-04 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  I mean you guys can flame back and forth all you want. But javascript is never going anywhere. Not until web browsers are a thing of the past... you can love it or hate it but to call someone who does brilliant things on one platform a retard simply because he is on said platform is about the most naive comment in the thread....
21. Re: People who see the web as documents by evileeyore · 2017-12-04 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  Your comment is correct, but in this context is is completely off... This like compare apples to satellites, when having a conversation about seahorses. Of course i can make an application that spits output to the a web browser, but this requires network activity, (literally the most inefficeint least reliable thing in coding now that > 60% of all traffic is coming over mobiel networks). So you can't tell me that offloading 95% of those "web requests" for silly things that complex applications need to perform, ont a javascript based app, that now only has to send 1 in 20 requests to your server for display calculation is less efficient. Don't flame just to flame friend :)
22. Re: People who see the web as documents by angel'o'sphere · 2017-12-05 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  I avoid using web apps.
  And I don't really develop web apps.
  All desktop apps I develop are in Java/Groovy/Scala ... so I don't care.
  'Web technology' as in HTML5/CSS etc. makes sense for cross platform mobile development.
  I don't want a web site as an app ... the only thing that comes close to it that I'm using is FB.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
23. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-09 01:42 · Score: 0
  
  > Would you rather have a web app or a Mac-only app?
  I would rather not have a false dichotomy.
24. Re: People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-09 03:54 · Score: 1
  
  If the developer of a particular application has the budget to make it for only one target platform, the dichotomy is true. And the web with client-side script has greater user base reach than any single native desktop platform.
25. Re: People who see the web as documents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-09 18:14 · Score: 0
  
  It's only true if doing a cross-platform release will cost more than doing a web-based app, and I don't see any obvious reason for that to be the case 100% of the time.
  I'm willing to bet you haven't done a cost/benefit analysis either.
26. Re: People who see the web as documents by tepples · 2017-12-10 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  It's only true if doing a cross-platform release will cost more than doing a web-based app, and I don't see any obvious reason for that to be the case 100% of the time.
  Anti-script hardliners believe it to be the case 0% of the time, which I imagine is even less likely to be true than 100%.
  Allow me to begin the cost analysis:
  A web-based application requires a domain (with renewals per year) and a (free) domain-validated TLS certificate, which are less expensive than a set of organization-validated code signing certificates, one for each platform, and renewals per platform per year. Hosting of an applcation's online component is a wash between web and native.
Spiders by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:43 · Score: 0

I thought WebAssembly was a technique spiders use to catch their prey..
Why not by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 18:46 · Score: 0

just agree on a strongly-typed standard - and be done with it.. die javascript die.
WebAssembly = Not ready for prime time? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 19:24 · Score: 0

WebAssembly sounds great but their demo which has very basic graphics is is painfully slow to the point it is unusable. I you need a high end pc to run it at a decent speed then that defeats the point of its existence. https://webassembly.org/demo/Tanks/
1. Re:WebAssembly = Not ready for prime time? by narcc · 2017-12-02 23:08 · Score: 1
  
  It runs perfectly fine for me on an old budget laptop. Movement is smooth, with no stuttering or slowdowns. I expected it to be a total flop once I saw the Unity logo.
  I can only assume that you're trying to run this on your Kaypro II.
  Still, that demo is a pretty stupid choice. There are many more interesting demos that better showcase the capabilities of modern browsers. That this is what they selected tells me more about the website operators than it does about WebAssembly.
  
  --
  Required reading for internet skeptics
2. Re:WebAssembly = Not ready for prime time? by Travelsonic · 2017-12-03 01:05 · Score: 1
  
  Runs fine on my end, though I'd imagine that there are aspects of Unity that would add at least a little overhead to the mix.
  
  --
  If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
3. Re:WebAssembly = Not ready for prime time? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 12:12 · Score: 0
  
  Runs slow for me on a laptop which gives reasonable graphics performance for binaries. "Nearly as fast as native" my butthole.
Real languages do pointer arithmetic by aberglas · 2017-12-02 19:46 · Score: 1

Until WebAssembly can do that it is rubbish.
1. Re:Real languages do pointer arithmetic by Hal_Porter · 2017-12-03 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  You can take code with pointers and compile it to WebAssembly
  https://stackoverflow.com/ques...
  Now you may start shouting "All of this is ungodly! All of you are impure!" upon reading this and chant the operator precedence mantra from The Bible until you calm down and you'd be totally justified in doing so. Still it works.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
2. Re:Real languages do pointer arithmetic by aberglas · 2017-12-03 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  Pointer arithmetic is adding numbers to pointers. It is why
  int x;...
  myOutput("The Answer is " + x)
  produces a core dump (if you are lucky). It is what makes C/++ what it is today.
  JavaScript is all about pointers, and also has closures, so that is not the issue. It I the unconstrained arithmetic.
  Incidentally, 30 years ago Lisp machines used a Lisp-ish assembler that looked a bit like this.
3. Re:Real languages do pointer arithmetic by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 17:48 · Score: 0
  
  > You can take code with pointers and compile it to WebAssembly
  Sure, why not?. Pointers are effectively memory offsets, so if you model memory using an array, an offset into that array is equivalent to an address.
What could possibly go wrong? by peppepz · 2017-12-02 20:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

Am I alone in thinking that giving CPU-level access to our browser to ad networks, hackers, scammers, governments* from all around the world with no authentication and no accountability whatsoever** is a bad idea? Haven't we seen what happened in the past with Java and ActiveX***? Moreover, back then at least Java ran "safe" high-level bytecode, whereas this thing will give to honest programmers the joy of buffer-smashing into adjacent variables, and to dishonest programmers the power to mine bitcoins at nearly native speeds! And once the next hip web frameworks start relying on this technology, there's no way we'll be able to disable it if we want to access the Internet as it's intended.

* in no particular order of undesirability.
** the same-origin policy helps but is not enough, we can't make a trust decision every time we click on a URL, especially now that browser authors have made it so difficult to even see what a link points to, or even understand whether something is a link in the first place. Also, web developers tend to include large amounts of third-party code that they do not inspect, and if such code comes in binary form even before they minify it, then they won't be able to audit that code even nominally.
*** I'm not adding JavaScript to the list. See? I'm not an old person. I like new things!
1. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by roca · 2017-12-02 22:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  WebAssembly programs have access to exactly the same set of APIs that JS programs do. They just run some things faster. There is no change in security (except slightly more attack surface in the form of the WebAssembly compiler, and even that's minimized since browser WebAssembly implementations reuse existing JS compiler backends).
  WebAssembly is no more obfuscated than minified Javascript.
2. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Gravis+Zero · 2017-12-02 23:54 · Score: 1
  
  Am I alone in thinking that giving CPU-level access to our browser to ad networks, hackers, scammers, governments* from all around the world with no authentication and no accountability whatsoever** is a bad idea?
  Nope, you are just one of many people. The bad news is that this outcome was inevitable but the good news is that this isn't the final outcome. After a drawn out tug-of-war, a new incarnation of HTML will come to being and it will have limited scripted CSS events that cannot be abused. Ads as we know them will cease to exist and will instead be replaced by a crediting system which will effectively pay sites for content based on various metrics. Credit can be purchased or earned through various means (e.g. executing computational units). Naturally, it will be the company that organizes the credit system that will develop the dominate browser. "Content piracy" is going to be a thing but it's impact will continue to be minimal (despite the vocal objections of corporations).
  The world is changing but it's not entirely unpredictable. Prepare yourself for the ensuing tug-of-war that is about to go full scale.
  
  --
  Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
3. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by peppepz · 2017-12-03 00:27 · Score: 2
  
  But JavaScript programs cannot smash a buffer and write into another variable, as is required by the C memory model, and JavaScript libraries are not distributed in minified form (before development).
4. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Ace17 · 2017-12-03 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  I think the comparison is unfair ; Javascript/asmjs/WASM can't address the host memory the way an ActiveX component could.
  It's easy for an ActiveX component to crash almost any host, simply access a NULL pointer from your code. Doing this from a Javascript/asmjs/WASM program is several orders of magnitude harder, and generally needs to be specially tailored for one specific version of one specific browser.
5. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by peppepz · 2017-12-03 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  Java and ActionScript couldn't access the host memory, too, but that didn't prevent the Java plugin and Flash from becoming the preferred carriers for browser malware. And those ran type- and memory- safe languages, not C. In order to reach an awful lot of people, an exploit needn't work on every machine, it's enough for it to target the most commonly used platform. Given that the browser landscape has been converging towards a monoculture lately, this could become even easier than it was in the past.
6. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Ace17 · 2017-12-04 18:45 · Score: 1
  
  What you say makes sense ; but then, the issue comes from the browser monoculture (which allows exploit scaling). Or from the precompiled plugin monoculture, which applies to Java and Flash, who were only distributed as precompiled binaries.
  
  Exploits as well exist in almost any code that parses complex data coming from outside (loaders for PNG, JPG, HTML, WEBM...) ... why make a special case for WASM?
WebAssembly and SIMD by Hal_Porter · 2017-12-02 20:34 · Score: 2

It's kind of a hack, but it gets the job done. Basically you have types like float32x, int32x4 etc. There are methods to add and subtract them using non vector code but if the hardware supports them using vector instructions, those vector instructions get substituted for the non vector code.
https://github.com/tc39/ecmasc...

--
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
1. Re:WebAssembly and SIMD by abies · 2017-12-02 21:07 · Score: 1
  
  Is it implemented anywhere? From what I was able to quickly find, it is an _idea_ that somebody in future might be bothered by replacing it by true vector instructions, but nobody yet implemented it, so currently it will always fallback to polyfill. It would be great if you could point to changeset which implements it in natvely in one of major browsers.
2. Re:WebAssembly and SIMD by Hal_Porter · 2017-12-03 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  They're working on it it Chromium
  https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8...
  However this page
  https://peterjensen.github.io/...
  Complains that SIMD isn't implemented in Chrome 62, and unfortunately it's not implemented in Firefox 57 either.
  So the answer is probably no, not yet.
  Last time I used SIMD I used the Intel intrinsics in C++. Which are OK, but Visual Studio's C compiler didn't do a particularly good job at generating efficient assembler. Mind you, a vectorizable algorithm will still run faster using the intrinsics than not using them, and the compilers get better with each release. And of course if you use the intrinsics wrapped in a Float32xN class instead of hand rolled assembler it's pretty easy to support other SIMD instruction sets. E.g. 128 bit SSE to AVX512 you just need to fill in the operators with the appropriate intrinsic function and then tell your code to use Float32x16 instead of Float32x4. With hand rolled assembler you'd have to rewrite everything. So they do make sense. AVX512 has gather too -
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  And if you need to support NEON you can use the NEON intrinsics.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
That's not what this is doing. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-02 21:58 · Score: 0

That's not what this is doing.
Put him on the stake by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 01:22 · Score: 0

A browser should never run code you pederast. If you want to run code write a native application.
They stole it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 04:37 · Score: 0

Emscripten came about after someone from Adobe came to Mozilla around 2008 to show basically the same thing but with AS3 and Flash. Hate Adobe, hate Flash, but give credit where credit is due. A similar presentation was done at the llvm conference in 2008: https://llvm.org/devmtg/2008-08/
No, it's STILL unthinkable by RogueWarrior65 · 2017-12-03 08:01 · Score: 1

The word you should have used was "impossible" but even today it's unthinkable. I mean, key-rist, why the hell would anyone want to work in JavaScript? Blech.
One problem I have with JavaScript games by OrangeTide · 2017-12-03 08:32 · Score: 1

I suspect after several years the games, if unmaintained to the latest whiz-bang JS frameworks, will bitrot and newer browsers will cease supporting older javascript feature. I've seen this happen before when JavaScript was younger. And not much has been done to address the interface and feature stability of the language. We'll still be at the whims of the policies set by the top web browsers.
Maybe a little game isn't worth having 20 years later. But there are plenty of cases where old C/C++ code is brought back to life. And where 10, 20 or even 30 year old binaries are successfully ran in an emulator or in a Win95-compatibilty box. We are not likely to see
Back to the original topic, I think something like Emscripten (which I've used to run some C-based GUI libraries in a web browser). is very valuable for the long term use of a project. Writing things in an ISO standardized language that changes slowly every 10 years seems like a better play than an ECMA standardized language that changes significantly every year. I understand that JavaScript is still new and evolving, but we've had it in one form or another for over 20 years. At what point can I write a piece of software for the Web that will last? Perhaps never?

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
1. Re:One problem I have with JavaScript games by theweatherelectric · 2017-12-03 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect after several years the games, if unmaintained to the latest whiz-bang JS frameworks, will bitrot and newer browsers will cease supporting older javascript feature.
  DHTML Lemmings still works and that was last updated in 2004. I'm using Firefox and DHTML Lemmings was released before Firefox was.
Backup your bs w/ proof OrangeTide by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-03 09:01 · Score: 0

Backup your bs w/ proof OrangeTide https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11425437&cid=55663429/ provide proof of me picking on you 'for years' as you said - you can't.
(If I had issues w/ you I'd have bookmarked it & I never have before YOU came in calling me a "git" (fool) starting hassles!)
* See you there (somehow I don't think I will & you will continue to embarass yourself as you did starting garbage with me - I am going to let YOU finish YOURSELF boy)
Additionally - CLASSIC & PRICELESS: I also CAUGHT YOU posting UNIDENTIFIABLE AC vs. using your registered 'lusername' yet you point to YOUR POSTthat was done under your REGISTERED 'lusrname' claiming it too (YOU = FLATOUT-BUSTED -> https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11432439&cid=55667787/ )
APK
P.S.=> This is the 10th time you've done a "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" vs. it OrangeTide - why's that? I caught you lying?? Cat got your tongue??? Yes, obviously - pitiful... apk
Their candid honesty is quite refreshing by AlejandroTejadaC · 2017-12-03 13:33 · Score: 1

Their frank opinion about JavaScript::::::: "When Mozilla began its games program, a lot of its engineers focused their efforts, naturally enough, on JavaScript performance. It was an intense and exciting time, with people using cutting-edge academic research and an array of optimization techniques from industry. With these, our team was able to speed up JavaScript so it could deliver something close to a native-software experience, the gold standard.......... The problem was that these performance gains weren’t consistent. Sometimes the code ran really fast, but sometimes it didn’t. The design of JavaScript made it difficult to determine when and where the slowdowns were occurring, and it was almost impossible to predict when they’d crop up."