Comments on: Adobe Open Sources JavaScript Engine in Mozilla Foundation

By: Yoko

Yoko — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 01:13:10 +0000

Agreed.

By: david

david — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:46:30 +0000

Wow!!! that is big news. thanks man :) ________________ Free Software | Top Share Site | Ù…ÙˆØ¨Ø§ÛŒÙ„ ØŒ Ú©Ø§Ù…Ù¾ÛŒÙˆØªØ±

By: Backdrifter: Adobe Donates ActionScript VM to Mozilla

Backdrifter: Adobe Donates ActionScript VM to Mozilla — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:41:38 +0000

[...] Adobe Open Sources JavaScript Engine in Mozilla Foundation at Ajaxian [...]

By: Steven Elliott

Steven Elliott — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 16:35:16 +0000

Apologies for jumping the gun. I just took a look at Tamarin CVS and found disappointingly there is no support for AS3 only ES4. Oh well, it seemed possible if not probable.

By: Steven Elliott

Steven Elliott — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 15:53:01 +0000

As I understand the press releases AVM2 will compile and run AS3 in Mozilla. If this is the case a couple of things become possible (and probably more). You will have access to the AS3 API which includes XMLSocket, NetConnection, NetConnectionChannel, et al. This could not only replace XHR but would provide a ready made solution for reverse Ajax / Comet (directly replacing ad hoc solutions like AjaF). Going one step further you have SharedObject API for collaborative API. I realize a lot of this depends on server-side code but I guess my question is “How much of the AS3 API is Tamarin going to run on the clientside?”. Anybody?

By: rob cherny

rob cherny — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:24:34 +0000

On my site where I posted about this, I was concentrating on the "killing two birds with one stone" aspect, but I wasn't even aware of the performance gains to be had. Very cool indeed. Can't wait.

By: Brendan Eich

Brendan Eich — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:39:21 +0000

Jim Ray: you’ve got it. Lately, when I speak, I hear requests for a standard bytecode format for JS. My answer is that the bytecoded, JITed VM space is a patent-encrusted mess, which means sunk costs of significant size. So I doubt there will be a standard JS bytecode, but I do suspect that a standard binary syntax for Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) could be agreed upon, based on the interfaces for reflecting on ASTs that we are working on for ES4. And binary-ASTs can be *more* efficient, both for transfer and for JITing, than binary bytecode formats.

/be

By: Jim Ray

Jim Ray — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:07:20 +0000

Hey, thanks, Brendan!

I guess what I meant when I said that “JS is never compiled” is that it’s never compiled by the developer, e.g. it’s still interpreted by the browser first, not dropped on the webserver as a compiled object (like a Java applet or a Flash SWF). So, the way I understand this is that there will be a generic JS -> bytecode compiler and then a platform specific bytecode -> machine code JIT that will further improve performance.

By: Rob Sanheim

Rob Sanheim — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:31:39 +0000

Nice blog post summarizing what this means for everyone involved:

http://www.hecker.org/mozilla/adobe-mozilla-and-tamarin

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:25:34 +0000

To Andreas Ecker: Just saw that myself on Ars and double checked here – thanks!

By: Brendan Eich

Brendan Eich — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:54:53 +0000

Jim Ray: JS is compiled in Firefox to bytecode, so it’s not true that “JS is never compiled.” Some browsers parse to abstract syntax trees (ASTs) and interpret those recursively; others compile to continuations, as if the JS were Scheme or a Lisp dialect. In any event, JS can be JITed to gain performance. Untyped JS as is found on the web will need special care to realize the same gains that typed AS3 code sees in Flash 9.

/be

By: JD on EP

JD on EP — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:41:09 +0000

Tamarin commentary, day 1

Tamarin commentary, day 1: Through the day I’ll be updating this entry with links & pullquotes I find particularly interesting. It’s like drinking from a firehose, though… Adobe’s donation to Mozilla of scripting engine sourcecode will take us all…

By: Andreas Ecker

Andreas Ecker — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:05:07 +0000

Fortunately, Jeffrey, we won't have to wait til 2010 :-). From the Tamarin project page at Mozilla: "Tamarin will support the forthcoming ECMAScript Edition 4 (''JS'') language and will be integrated into SpiderMonkey as part of the Mozilla 2 project, to be released in 2008". Recently Brendan Eich made various rather mysterious statements about a forthcoming open source JavaScript VM. Definitely, this is going to change the future of browser-based applications! For the Open Source JavaScript framework qooxdoo (as well as all the other JavaScript frameworks), this is particularly great news as it had recently already revealed the major performance improvements of IE7.

By: Jim Ray

Jim Ray — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:42:07 +0000

So, can someone explain to me what the advantage of having a JIT is for web developers, specifically as it relates to Javascript? My understanding of JIT is that it takes bytecode, like what you get from a Java app or SWF, and translates it to machine code, tuned to specific platforms, at runtime.

But since JS is never compiled, I don’t understand the advantage of dynamic translation for JS. Am I missing something?

By: è‹¦ç‰¢ä¹‹æœ€å¾Œä¸€å¹´

è‹¦ç‰¢ä¹‹æœ€å¾Œä¸€å¹´ — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:00:07 +0000

Tamarin = Flash + JavaScript + ?

æƒ³åˆ°ä»¥å¾Œå¯èƒ½å¯ä»¥ä¸ç”¨è£ flash player æˆ‘å°±è¦ºå¾—è »é«˜èˆˆçš„… :p

å‰›å‰›çœ‹åˆ°ä¸€å‰‡æ¶ˆæ¯ï¼Œèªªæ˜¯ Adobe æŠŠå®ƒå€‘çš„ ActionScript virtual machine çš„ç¨‹å¼çµ¦ open source äº†ï¼Œäº¤ä»˜çµ¦ Mozilla ä½¿ç”¨ï¼Œæ”¹åå«åš Tamarin (ä¸æ˜¯ …

By: Dion Almaer

Dion Almaer — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:22:05 +0000

JZ,

Flash uses ActionScript which is ECMAScript (the standard). JavaScript, JScript, are implementations of the ECMAScript standard.

Basically, Flash runs on what you think of as a JavaScript VM :)

Cheers,

Dion

By: JZ

JZ — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:09:53 +0000

Umm. I see Flash and javascript mentioned here. I didn’t realize that Flash used javascript. Obviously I’m confused. Can someone please explain the significance of the announcement in simple terms? Also, does this give give significant strategic advantage to Mozilla over MS/IE?

By: iface thoughts » Tamarin - A Contribution From Adobe

iface thoughts » Tamarin - A Contribution From Adobe — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:22:25 +0000

[...] Ajaxian breaks this news about Adobe contributing source code from the FlashPlayer Scripting Engine to the Mozilla Foundation. This will take the form of a new project called Tamarin. It will continue to be used by Adobe as part of the ActionScript(tm) Virtual Machine within Adobe Flash Player. Not only does this open it to the community, but will ensure tighter integration with the open source and cross-platform browser Firefox. This is also a good news for Linux community as this might lead to a better experience with Flash in future. Kudos to Adobe! [...]

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:51:37 +0000

Wow – that is big news. Previous discussion made it appear that a JIT Javascript compiler would be 2010 thing for Firefox. Now I would like to speculate that it will be much sooner(?)