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why should they pick a javascript engine?why should they pick a javascript engine?Posted May 21, 2009 4:21 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)Parent article: GNOME debates Javascript bindings
and especially, why should they be developing one themselves?
with all the browsers having speed wars about their next generation javascript engine, one (or more) of those would be better than something developed for GNOME.
and if javascript is a defined language, it should not matter (as anything other than short-term bugs for missing features) WHICH engine is in use. the code should be portable enough to run across all of them.
the LAST thing that should happen is to end up with app#1 written in javscript for engine A, app#2 written in javascrpt for engine B, etc.
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why should they pick a javascript engine? Posted May 21, 2009 7:13 UTC (Thu) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link]
Your questions don't make sense... GNOME needs to choose a Javascript engine because they're not developing their own. The choice is between the two fastest (both in terms of performance and development progress) Open Source engines available: Mozilla's (which Gjs uses) and WebKit's (which Seed uses).
The bits that GNOME developers are creating are the bindings between those engines and the GNOME platform, so you can actually create GNOME software with Javascript.
why should they pick a javascript engine? Posted May 21, 2009 12:39 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
they should be able to use either engine (or the google V8 javascript engine), just like you can use different C compilers to compile good, portable C applications.
why should they pick a javascript engine? Posted May 21, 2009 14:54 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
The JavaScript code itself should be portable between the two engines, or any other they care to use. The problem is on the other end, in the interface between the JS engine and the non-JS Gnome APIs. If they don't settle on a particular implementation then they'll be forced to duplicate at least a portion of the native interface for each supported engine.
why should they pick a javascript engine? Posted May 21, 2009 15:28 UTC (Thu) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link]
The article -- in fact, almost the entire point of the article -- describes why the situation is not that simple... These engines were designed to be used within the context of a web browser (embedded, single-purpose), so as Javascript becomes more relevant outside the web context, the language and runtimes will grow additional features -- thus the features provided by Mozilla's implementation which are attractive to the GNOME Shell hackers.
Here's an illustrative challenge for you: How do you write to stdout in Javascript, and if you can answer that, is your method a feature of the langauge or the runtime?
why should they pick a javascript engine? Posted May 21, 2009 15:29 UTC (Thu) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link]
Gah, that was meant to be a reply to the comment above yours, and say "stderr" not "stdout". Thanks. :-)
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