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A small but complete JavaScript engine

bellard.org

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Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#111

Post by qz2 »

chii wrote: post #70
mhh__ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's in his 50s keep in mind. Most people of his productivity get shoved into management long before his age. He's very good but it's not like he did ffmpeg last week and QuickJS this week. Some people are just born to be able to work all day all week, if you are one of those people please don't throw it away (I am not one of them). I think I have the knowledge to do most of his projects e.g. I have the mathematics,…

> get shoved into management long before his age. Problem is that management pays so much better than a contributor of code. Society has collectively decided that management is worth more economically, than individual contributors.

Actually it worked out pretty good here. It keeps my head free of crap so I can concentrate on making cool stuff in my own time with my own choice of tools.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#112

Post by vidarh »

chii wrote: post #73
Macuyiko wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. 10 years ago, I could still pretend I'd be able to come close to his productivity if I "just set my mind to it." Today (being older, slower, and having a family), I can only be humble.

Many people don't have the misconception that they can compete athletically at the level of olympics. And yet, somehow, a lot of people mistakenly believe they could perform intellectually at that same high level!

I think you run into the barrier much faster in something like sports because the gap is so easily measurable. E.g. it just takes one 100m sprint to see how slow you are.

Whereas with intellectual work it's often hard to assess the gap, not least because the further you are from closing it, the less understanding you'll tend to have of how hard the remaining parts are.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#113

Post by jonex »

thamer wrote: post #34

Currently composed of 85,624 lines of C code, mostly in quickjs.c (53,575 lines in that one file alone), but also with a couple other large ones. I can't say I understand the reason for such massive files. Surely it would be easier to maintain if it was split into a few well-defined modules? In addition to the maintenance concerns, a JavaScript engine has quite a few parts that could be used as individual components.…

It would probably be easier to read, but as a one-man project, my guess is that readability is less of a concern than for the average code base. Splitting code up in files requires some extra work and makes refactoring harder as you have to spend a lot of effort on trivial tasks such as moving dependencies between files and updating includes all over the place.

Personally I tend to want to split up code written by others so I can focus on the parts that go together without having to read through irrelevant parts, but I can easily navigate larger files/classes I've authored myself. I mainly split it up for the sake of future readers.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#114

Post by interfixus »

thamer wrote: post #34

Currently composed of 85,624 lines of C code, mostly in quickjs.c (53,575 lines in that one file alone), but also with a couple other large ones. I can't say I understand the reason for such massive files. Surely it would be easier to maintain if it was split into a few well-defined modules? In addition to the maintenance concerns, a JavaScript engine has quite a few parts that could be used as individual components.…

Well, this sparked off a whole and quite predictable thread.

We can only hope Fabrice Bellard reads it all so he can learn himself some coding.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#115

Post by agumonkey »

kelnos wrote: post #109
agumonkey wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers are everything.. by manager I mean leaders not paperwork/monitors. I firmly believe that 10 geniuses will go nowhere without direction 8 times out of 10. And non geniuses it will be 9.99/10. Managers were the people that turned human potential into outcomes.

I would agree with you except for the legions of god-awful managers I have encountered. A good manager is a huge asset for a team, but a bad (or even mediocre) manager is often worse than having none at all.

That's what I meant too, a good enough manager is an immense value, the others are nothing and are probably only there because somehow humans/societies recognized how crucial and applied 'put a manager' everywhere without care.

But yeah you're right a bad one will turn a team comatose.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#116

Post by bitwize »

brabel wrote: post #100
userbinator wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching in one file is easy in any text editor. Searching across files (and directories) is more difficult. I don't use an IDE. In fact, I'd say it's a problem if code requires an IDE in order to work on it effectively (Enterprise Java is the most prominent example of this.) I'm nowhere near Bellard level, but would consider myself above average, and have observed that some of the most productive programmers don't…

To suggest that not using an IDE is a sign you're a better developer makes as much sense as suggesting that not using an electric screwdriver to fit things is a sign of a better handyman.

To suggest that GP could have written better software had he used an IDE is to suggest that Michelangelo could have painted a better Sistine Chapel fresco had he used an electric paint sprayer.

Or, to bring it back within realistically achievable levels of talent, that Bob Ross's trees would've been happier if he used one.

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#117

Post by izietto »

staunch wrote: post #9
iamvnraju wrote: post #2

Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. Ffmpeg, Qemu, Tiny C Compiler ... many others .. and now this!

He really has done so much incredible work. I'd love a Fabrice Bellard interview/podcast/tech talk but found none when searching. If anyone has a link, please post it!

I guess he's too busy developing great projects

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#118

Post by chess_buster »

terminalcommand wrote: post #107
z3phyr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your IDE should be able to split a single file codebase into different readable modules. If it cannot do that, its not a good IDE. And slippery slope...

Do IDEs really do that type of refactoring? As a long time Emacs user I long forgot what a good IDE is capable of. I know of automatic renaming, moving parts you select automatically to another file, but full automatic refactoring to multiple modules is something I haven’t seen. How does this tackle circular dependencies etc. I guess the IDE must parse the code, generate the syntax tree, populate symbol tables etc. a…

I think that's actually a good analogy and I have felt the same from time to time!

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#119

Post by bjconlan »

Scarbutt wrote: post #33
iamvnraju wrote: post #2

Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. Ffmpeg, Qemu, Tiny C Compiler ... many others .. and now this!

Frabrice Bellard truly works in God mode. And in Emacs mode.

His own emacs mode (https://bellard.org/qemacs) I don’t think he uses it anymore but I always found that the best side effect of concise/elegant (minimal) code (or perhaps goals/scope) is generally better performance (I think this is also partly because of a single author understanding a lot more of a ‘product’ than a team)

Also wanna throw Mike Pall & Arthur Whitney in there as an honourable mentions (productive gods/100x)

Re: A small but complete JavaScript engine

#120

Post by imesh »

jfo wrote: post #92
steve_taylor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best guess is that he doesn’t have kids.

I would have thought this was an asshole comment before I had kids. Young ones take SO much time. I don’t regret kids at all but I regret not doing even more with my time previously!

Unfortunately my time prior to kids was spent becoming a mediocre developer and not becoming Bellard.
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