Opera 10.50 Beta Out, With Competitive JavaScript 143
Opera has released its 10.5 beta (for Windows only; Linux and Mac coming). Opera calls 10.5 "the fastest browser on earth," but the jury is out on this claim. WebMonkey says that the new beta feels snappy in their informal testing. Both CNET and ZDNet ran two quick benchmarks that measure JavaScript performance, SunSpider and V8. ZDNet found Opera beating out Chrome in SunSpider but lagging in V8. CNET found Chrome ahead in both tests. What is clear however is that Opera's Carakan JavaScript engine has made up much of the ground in the performance wars; The Reg estimates that 10.5 is seven times faster in the JavaScript stakes than Opera's shipping 10.1 release.
Let's just ditch JavaScript. (Score:0, Insightful)
Can we finally just ditch JavaScript for something better? Python, Ruby, or some dialect of Scheme would be much better. Hell, even Perl and Tcl would be a huge step in the right direction.
JavaScript started out as a quick hack over 15 years ago, and has unfortunately stuck around far longer than it should have. We can do better, and we should do better.
Opera, Google, Apple, Mozilla and the KDE project should team up on this goal, and make it happen. If Microsoft doesn't want to get with the times, then leave them behind.
Vega (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vega (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but wont those animations be controlled by javascript? Drawing them fast and *where* to draw them are both important...first being the accelerated graphics, second being programmatic control...javascript.
So, you should be double excited?
Worth a look (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the obsession with javascript? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: I do recognize and appreciate the need to make javascript perform better.
Thing is...it seems that for many tech "journalists" hardly anything besides js matters anymore!
Notice how Opera said "the fastets on earth"; which might be still debatable of course, but they did not say "...fastest in javascript". Opera knows that's not the whole story in browser performance. You can see it especially when using Opera on some ancient machine where the difference is most startling. WebMonkey seems to know it too (nah, not reading TFA...)
CNET, ZDNet and The Reg seem to care only about JS...
What is it? Some new widespread fascination with numbers like in 3DMark heyday? "Journalists" taking the easy route by simply running automatic benchmarks? (written "for" Opera competitors BTW...)
Re:Pretty impressive release (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:stop speeding up javascript (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you an alt for BadAnalogyGuy? Trains actually do something useful you can't do as well with horses. Javascript does nothing you can't do better with either plain HTML, or a native app. If you want to display a document, HTML is great and javascript adds nothing useful. If you want to write an app, there are any number of portable languages and toolkits that will perform much better than javascript.
Re:Let's just ditch JavaScript. (Score:3, Insightful)
VBScript is nothing to tout as a positive. Certainly not as a potential replacement for Javascript.
Maybe you should spend more time with IE.
Please don't say that.
Re:stop speeding up javascript (Score:5, Insightful)
Flush out your headgear, new guy. The days of HTML- and CSS- only websites are over. Even though those sites still exist, there's an entirely new category of "websites" online: web applications. The application I've been working on for the last 3 years or so is composed of about 60% Javascript, 30% PHP, 8% CSS, 1% HTML, 1% "other". With the recent push in Javascript engines, I've actually been able to watch the performance of the application improve by a substantial amount through no effort of my own, just because the application uses Javascript for the entire interface and browsers have focused on that aspect.
Nearly all of Google's services other than search are powered by Javascript, from Maps to Mail. Javascript (or any widely-supported client-side scripting language) is here to stay, and frankly it's the future of anything that's going to be online other than your basic informational sites. Even sites which are taking advantage of all of the new features in HTML5 will continue to take advantage of Javascript as well. The difference between IE6/7 and any very recent (< 3 months) browser is staggering.
I'm glad to see Opera catching up again, they're my browser of choice. They were among the fastest of the "first generation" JS engines, but nearly everyone else other than Microsoft pretty much beat Opera to the punch in the next generation of Javascript. It's nice to see them catch up. I hope Microsoft is able to make better strides with IE9, if not before.
Even the fancy but legitimately useful UI toolkits (e.g. YUI, jQuery) are invasive because they are so often served from third party sites (Yahoo or Google) instead of directly from the app site.
You can't say that the libraries are invasive because they're included from third-party applications, the application developers are invasive. My chosen framework (ExtJS in this case) is served from the same domain as the rest of the application, all gzipped and everything.
Re:Pretty impressive release (Score:2, Insightful)
Netscape/Mozilla is older than IE, but Firefox still changed over to IE-ish shortcuts on Windows in order to be a more comfortable transition.
Also, I'm not asking Opera to shaft their loyal users. Opera is very customizable. There's no reason why they couldn't create a Firefox-ish shorcut set and let users choose that as an option. In fact, right now my biggest gripe is that their customization doesn't allow you to redefine ctrl-click consistently.
Re:Let's just ditch JavaScript. (Score:3, Insightful)
JavaScript is a de facto standard supported by all browsers. Unseating it would be as hard as migrating from GIF to PNG. And, unlike GIF, it doesn't have any patent problems, and in general it's just "good enough". Furthermore, there's no clear single replacement - quite a lot of people are actually very happy with JS, but even of those who are not, some would promote Python, some Ruby, etc.
Don't fix what's not broken badly enough.
Re:Windows only? (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of those major changes, they are pushing Windows at the moment because of the EU Vs. Microsoft thing, where in March Microsoft will have to add the "Choose Your Browser" dialog, and Opera wants 10.5 to be on that list, not 10.1.
Re:Pretty impressive release (Score:2, Insightful)
Every Tom, Dick, and Harry browser that comes along? IE8/Firefox/Chrome/Safari, which are #1-4 in the marketplace, have very similar keyboard shortcuts. You'd think Opera would at least study its competition. Alternatively it could continue enjoying its niche as #5.