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Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

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Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#61
post #19

This is awesome, but before anyone uses this for something real keep in mind that the way this works is that Microsoft has created a shim on top of Chakra that exposes a V8 API. If V8 changes its API drastically (which it frequently does) this little experiment is basically over. There is only so much work people can do to keep up with a moving target. Barring NodeJS creating an abstract JS engine API that developers…

Node's and V8's APIs changed so frequently that someone created an abstraction layer called NaN ("Native Abstractions for Node.js") for people developing Node binary plugins.

https://github.com/nodejs/nan

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#62
post #19

This is awesome, but before anyone uses this for something real keep in mind that the way this works is that Microsoft has created a shim on top of Chakra that exposes a V8 API. If V8 changes its API drastically (which it frequently does) this little experiment is basically over. There is only so much work people can do to keep up with a moving target. Barring NodeJS creating an abstract JS engine API that developers…

Node's and V8's APIs changed so frequently that someone created an abstraction layer called NaN ("Native Abstractions for Node.js") for people developing Node binary plugins. https://github.com/nodejs/nan

... and this integration uses that as well, so that nan stuff still works.

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is for all of ChakraCore to be broadly cross-platform eventually, including the JIT, and including many more platforms than just Ubuntu x64. The roadmap reflects our next steps for the next 6 months but is not the entire journey. Disclosure: I work on Chakra

>> An implementation of ChakraCore interpreter and runtime, no JIT, on Linux. You should update the wiki if you work on the project then. The stated roadmap goal seems fairly clear and aligns with a typical Microsoft strategy to ensure Windows remains the premium platform for its "open source" efforts. Not being negative that is just the way it has gone in the past so you are fighting an uphill battle. Disclosure: No…

Thanks for your thoughts :) We've updated the roadmap[1] to call out that JIT and more platforms are coming in future iterations.

1: https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/wiki/Roadmap

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#64
post #19

This is awesome, but before anyone uses this for something real keep in mind that the way this works is that Microsoft has created a shim on top of Chakra that exposes a V8 API. If V8 changes its API drastically (which it frequently does) this little experiment is basically over. There is only so much work people can do to keep up with a moving target. Barring NodeJS creating an abstract JS engine API that developers…

Node's and V8's APIs changed so frequently that someone created an abstraction layer called NaN ("Native Abstractions for Node.js") for people developing Node binary plugins. https://github.com/nodejs/nan

Keep in mind that native modules coded against NAN1 do not work with NAN2. Not sure about forward compatibility of NAN.

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#67
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and it's actually really anti-intellectual, since a well adjusted person is capable of both humor-depth and logical-depth understanding among many other things.

I really don't want HN to turn into reddit, with half the thread devoted to jokes/memes, so I appreciate self moderation that discourages that.

I can appreciate that point of view. I really wouldn't want that either.

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#68
post #50
post #40

Why should a developer care about this? What does ChkraCore bring to the table that V8 doesn't ?

ECMAScript 2015 coverage (even some ECMAScript 2016) by ChkraCore is better than V8 (or SpiderMonkey) [1] [1] http://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6/

> V8 now has 92% ES6 coverage in Chrome Canary (on track for shipping in Chrome M49)

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932790

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#69
Many posters in that Github Chakra pull request thread appear to be in the "Node is V8 and only V8" camp. This is disappointing. Since when is having a bigger developer community, supporting the latest ES6 standards, and having wider reach for NodeJS a bad thing? Look at what the friendly rivalry has done for the various browsers - the competition benefitted everyone and advanced technology immeasurably.

Re: Enable Node.js to Run with Microsoft's ChakraCore Engine

#70

Many posters in that Github Chakra pull request thread appear to be in the "Node is V8 and only V8" camp. This is disappointing. Since when is having a bigger developer community, supporting the latest ES6 standards, and having wider reach for NodeJS a bad thing? Look at what the friendly rivalry has done for the various browsers - the competition benefitted everyone and advanced technology immeasurably.

Because if the argument is better support and wider reach then maybe wait until it runs on more than one platform.

Edit: even if they had waited until the JITless builds for OS X and Linux were ready I'd be happier. This definitely feels like jumping the gun.

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