I definitely recommend poking around the console on this site!
On Asm.js
11–20 of 185 posts
Re: On Asm.js
#12I feel like PNaCl is the technically superior approach - define a stable set of LLVM bytecode and build an interface to run it in the browser. But the uptake is a problem, no other browser maker wants to adopt a big chunk of code controlled by Google, tailored to run optimally in Chrome.
So asm.js took a beeline - leveraging existing Javascript machinery for security/JIT and shoehorning a way to run executable LLVM on top of it. The fact that it's Javascript is just a detail, a legacy of the days when one vendor (Netscape) was able to push through a standard for running code in the browser.
In today's fragmented browser landscape I find it hard to believe a consensus could be reached again. Most of the major browser makers (Google, Microsoft, Apple) have their own platform agenda to push - in that context asm.js's compatibility with existing Javascript engines gives it the best chance of adoption.
But I agree, the hoops that had to be jumped through are a damned shame.
Re: On Asm.js
#13The citadel demo, if anyone's looking for it: http://www.unrealengine.com/html5/ The article seems pretty doomy regarding asm.js - is it really going to take off and become an unweildy/frozen standard? Or is it of interest only to people writing game engines in pure JS / vanilla browser technologies?
Honestly, I've got no idea what the OP was trying to say... I think they are implying that asm.js is cool , but they're annoyed that it's being built on top of JS rather than from-scratch.
It's ignoring history. The author is saying that browser developers should get together and agree on something better than JavaScript. At first this seems quite possible, since browsers come out with new features all the time. But people have been trying to replace js for a long time and it has never ever worked.
Re: On Asm.js
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article links to that article, come on! Don't people read stuff anymore?
The linked website has an horrible animated background picture. Reading the text is almost impossible with IE 11. Screenshot: http://postimg.org/image/46p2krx95/
I hate to be that guy, but you're using IE.
On a serious note, you can't really blame people for not supporting a browser that needs hack for every single version.
Related: http://www.paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-i...
Re: On Asm.js
#15The citadel demo, if anyone's looking for it: http://www.unrealengine.com/html5/ The article seems pretty doomy regarding asm.js - is it really going to take off and become an unweildy/frozen standard? Or is it of interest only to people writing game engines in pure JS / vanilla browser technologies?
Honestly, I've got no idea what the OP was trying to say... I think they are implying that asm.js is cool , but they're annoyed that it's being built on top of JS rather than from-scratch.
Second this. I get that they are saying - asm.js is cool, but it's on JS, so eugh.
Personally I'd love for a really low level language (statically typed, little if any magic, no-GC, multi-threaded) to work across all browsers, but I don't think browser vendors can just sit and say - here is the perfect cross browser language that will make all of net easy.
Perhaps the best strategy is to have low level strict language on top of which you build more easier to use constructs - which describes IMO both asm.js and PNaCl.
Re: On Asm.js
#16I'm very impressed by the Epic Citadel demo. But how do you debug a C/C++ program that has been converted to asm.js? Whats the current tooling like?
Re: On Asm.js
#17What I miss in all those discussions regarding JS, asm.js and PNaCl is that the web is the best software distribution platform we have by a huge margin, this is really its overwhelming killer-feature. All the user needs is an URL. No "downloading", no installation, no special user permissions, no app shops, no gate keepers, no walled gardens, and everything is automatically multi-OS and multi-CPU-architecture. The web as a runtime platform may not be ideal, but the web as a "software distribution platform" rocks. For this I'm even happy to give up a few CPU cycles. And no platform should be tied to a specific language. The more choices there are, the better.
Re: On Asm.js
#18I'm very impressed by the Epic Citadel demo. But how do you debug a C/C++ program that has been converted to asm.js? Whats the current tooling like?
Usually I'm debugging a native "desktop build" of the code in VStudio or XCode since 99% of the bugs are not emscripten specific. But having said that: browsers are becoming a really good debugging platform as well. emscripten can emit source maps, which kinda lets you directly debug the C++ code in the browser (not as fluent as in a native debugger yet, since only code lines are mapped, not variables, but the potential is clear). Some WebGL related debugging tools are really good in the browser (e.g. Firefox' WebGL shader debugger or the WebGL inspector browser extension). Especially on OSX which doesn't have very good debugging tools for desktop GL the browser WebGL debugging tools are actually better then what's available as native tools (not as good as PIX or NVIDIA's NSight tool on Windows though).
Re: On Asm.js
#19Windowx XP give me the blue screen of death, with Firefox 25.0.1
XP is end of life in 5 months so I would expect a lot more problems in the not so near future.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/endofsuppo...