Firefox Gets Massive JavaScript Performance Boost 462
monkeymonkey writes "Mozilla has integrated tracing optimization into SpiderMonkey, the JavaScript interpreter in Firefox. This improvement has boosted JavaScript performance by a factor of 20 to 40 in certain contexts. Ars Technica interviewed Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich (the original creator of JavaScript) and Mozilla's vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver. They say that tracing optimization will 'take JavaScript performance into the next tier' and 'get people thinking about JavaScript as a more general-purpose language.' The eventual goal is to make JavaScript run as fast as C code. Ars reports: 'Mozilla is leveraging an impressive new optimization technique to bring a big performance boost to the Firefox JavaScript engine. ...They aim to improve execution speed so that it is comparable to that of native code. This will redefine the boundaries of client-side performance and enable the development of a whole new generation of more computationally-intensive web applications.' Mozilla has also published a video that demonstrates the performance difference."
An anonymous reader contributes links the blogs of Eich and Shaver, where they have some further benchmarks.
Re:Premature optimization.... (Score:5, Funny)
Considering how long Javascript has been out, and that javascript intensive applications are clearly there in the present, I don't think this is premature =P Its late!
Yeah.. but... (Score:2, Funny)
Will it make my Sony Bluray player take less than 10 minutes to boot and play a disc?
Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
What does the scouter say about its power level?!
Re:Precursor to more of Firefox being in JS (Score:5, Funny)
Gecko *is* a full-featured framework.
ExtJS is for the more restricted web stuff without code signing.
But then, the parent probably doesn't even know what a prototype is or a closure.
Reading your first two sentences, I found your post informative and worthwhile. But, with the last sentence, the voice reading your comment in my head suddenly turned into that whiny, high-pitched geek voice they use on cartoons.
Re:The Greatest Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Expect this discussion to be full of astroturf, red herrings and trolls
Ah, no problem. Just give the red herring to the troll and he'll let you pass the bridge :)
Re:The Greatest Idea (Score:5, Funny)
I am rubber, you are glue.
Re:Precursor to more of Firefox being in JS (Score:2, Funny)
its not your fault. java made you retarded.
Re:The Greatest Idea (Score:3, Funny)
It won't be just from the Windows side - a good chunk of Linux-heads hate anything but static black text on plain white backgrounds. So this should get interesting...
Goes to show what you know. Real Linux-heads hate anything but static white or green text on plain black backgrounds.
Re:Premature optimization.... (Score:2, Funny)
Have you considered that his purposes might in fact be intensive?
Re:Premature optimization.... (Score:1, Funny)
Thank you for explaining the joke. I, too, am a humorless automaton, so that sort of thing really helps out.
Re:Premature optimization.... (Score:3, Funny)
Somewhere, a comedian cries. Not sure if it's from your missing it or the original joke.