> Finally, you can also use ChakraCore as the JavaScript engine in Node. This is interesting. You can use it as an alternative to v8 for node.js
What is the advantage of this? What does 1 more JS engine buy us?
Competition
ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
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Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#22> Finally, you can also use ChakraCore as the JavaScript engine in Node. This is interesting. You can use it as an alternative to v8 for node.js
What is the advantage of this? What does 1 more JS engine buy us?
Competition! Now both teams have one more incentive to innovate and we get better software in the end.
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#23Even if I'm in danger of stating the obvious, but MS really changed its approach to software. And it is incredibly great having competition in the JS engine market.
Three existing production-ready open source engines + other embedded options wasn't already "competition"?
It's nice to see but, as far as competition within OSS is concerned, it's about 7-8 years too late. MS will no doubt, at some point, release something like Node.js based on this engine. If they do it'll be widely lauded, but you can barely say they're even a "fast follower" here when they're this slow.
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#24Even if I'm in danger of stating the obvious, but MS really changed its approach to software. And it is incredibly great having competition in the JS engine market.
Aka, Microsoft is again in the "embrace" stage of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. (Even if its current management has the noblest intentions, who knows how it'll be in two or three years?)
It is licensed under MIT. Good luck with that third step...
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#25> Finally, you can also use ChakraCore as the JavaScript engine in Node. This is interesting. You can use it as an alternative to v8 for node.js
What is the advantage of this? What does 1 more JS engine buy us?
perhaps more competition? v8, though much faster than other engines when released, is still roughly twice as slow as go. while jvm (also uses JIT) is roughly twice as fast as go and reaching near native/c/c++ performance. I know it's not a fair comparison between javascript(dynamic) and java (typed), but I am sure there is still room for improvement.
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#26(In case anyone thinks this is more amazing than it is: it runs on Windows only right now. But presumably someone will start working on Unix ports shortly.)
Check out the Linux branch :) we are actively working on a port. Disclaimer: Msft employee on chakra
From the Roadmap document - it seems like JIT on Linux is not a priority? That's surprising. Is it due to technical issues or the whole idea is to have NodeJS on Windows use Chakra and let the community do the Linux part with JIT?
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check out the Linux branch :) we are actively working on a port. Disclaimer: Msft employee on chakra
Is Mac support planned? Not really familiar with the internals, so I can't tell if the Linux branch is a generic (enough) branch for Unix and alike.
It's not on the short term roadmap because we've scoped it to clang 3.6 x64 Ubuntu while we stand up the branch but we're trying to keep our code changes for the port pretty generic.
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#28Small thing, but nice to see that the API is exposed as C (easy to write bindings for) instead of C++ (near-impossible to write bindings for).
Slight derail but I find it interesting that the Swift team is tackling the fragile ABI problem with v3... Something C++ could have done at any time, enabling portable and interoperable C++ interfaces.
(There's no reason clang importer couldn't surface C++ or any other language to Swift for that matter)
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#29Good that it's open source, but I found this blurb from their contributing guidelines [0] to be contribution inhibiting:
You will need to complete a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) before your pull request can be accepted. This agreement testifies that you are granting us permission to use the source code you are submitting, and that this work is being submitted under appropriate license that we can use it.
[0] https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/blob/master/CONTRIBU...
Re: ChakraCore GitHub repository is now open
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aka, Microsoft is again in the "embrace" stage of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. (Even if its current management has the noblest intentions, who knows how it'll be in two or three years?)
Do you have anything to back this up other than it being your knee-jerk reaction? Microsoft's entire leadership has turned over and it's easy to see that their culture is very different from the days you're talking about. Also, they don't have a monopoly on nearly anything and certainly not on Javascript engines. They couldn't move to the "Extend, Extinguish" phases even if they wanted to.
Not saying i agree, but we consider history for every decision made. Want to loan someone money? consider their credit rating. Want to hire someone? consider their employment record.
Microsoft has a long history of not being so nice when they have an advantage. How much of that is leadership driven, and how much is built into the corporate culture and structure? It's knee-jerk, but it's not crazy to think about.