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First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

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Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#71

Post by codereflection »

philbarr wrote: post #19
timje1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hope that it helps drive growth away from Internet Exploder ...

Unfortunately the "enterprise" seem set on it. Yesterday I was working with a new content management platform and I had to downgrade my Internet Explorer to 9 because it only works with IE 7,8 and 9. Then that still didn't work because of some MSXML problem I couldn't fix and I ended up having to use a VM with XP installed and IE 8. Un-be-lievable. I don't know who these Enterprisey IT managers are who are making the…

We go through a lot of the same crud. The latest is they cannot push out IE 10 / 11 to everyone because it would require server upgrades (which is true, but very lame). :/

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#72

Post by pcwalton »

johnbm wrote: post #67
Fr0styMatt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is using LLVM bitcode (PNaCL) at all similar to ActiveX? Yeah yeah I get it. I like asm.js as much as the next person; I just wish this whole PNaCl-is-ActiveX meme would seriously go away. It's willful ignorance. FWIW, I think it's fantastic that asm.js is turning out great. I also think that PNaCl is a worthy technical achievement. Two ways of solving the same problem given different constraints. I think…

Because PNaCl comes with its own implementations of input, graphics, audio, etc and cannot talk to any of the regular Web APIs. So basically, PNaCL is either ActiveX or it's Flash. https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/pepperc/grou... That said, I support using LLVM bitcode more than asm.js myself. I think asm.js is the dying breaths of JavaScript being hailed as its rebirth.

> That said, I support using LLVM bitcode more than asm.js myself. I think asm.js is the dying breaths of JavaScript being hailed as its rebirth.

I think asm.js has technical advantages over LLVM bitcode. Neither were really designed for this purpose (for LLVM, you must strip the undefined behavior; for JS, you must strip the high-level semantics), but at least JS has a fully specified, multi-vendor standard specifying the execution semantics. Plus asm.js has a very minimal type system and is non-SSA (while retaining high-level loop constructs that can be easily used to construct SSA without dominance frontiers if needed), both of which I think are advantages for delivering bytecode over the Web.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#73

Post by cpeterso »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #41
eknkc wrote: post #36

It works just fine in Safari. You know, without any special treatment from Apple for asm.js optimizations. I was sceptical but this shows that asm.js is a much better approach than Google's ActiveX wanna be solutions.

It loads, but I can't interact with anything here (Safari 7.0).

When I try to load the game in Safari 7.0 (on OS X 10.9), I get a Flash game, not asm.js.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#74

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

haberman wrote: post #68
johnbm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because PNaCl comes with its own implementations of input, graphics, audio, etc and cannot talk to any of the regular Web APIs. So basically, PNaCL is either ActiveX or it's Flash. https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/pepperc/grou... That said, I support using LLVM bitcode more than asm.js myself. I think asm.js is the dying breaths of JavaScript being hailed as its rebirth.

So providing APIs designed for C and C++ (instead of gluing it to JavaScript APIs) makes PNaCl the same as either an unsandboxed, proprietary, closed-source, non-OS-portable, non-CPU-portable Microsoft technology from the 90s, or a proprietary, closed-source Adobe technlogy from the 2000s? I think that may be a false dichotomy.

Well, PNaCl is poorly specified, difficult to implement for other browser vendors, and relies on a single implementation.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#75

Post by haberman »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #74
haberman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So providing APIs designed for C and C++ (instead of gluing it to JavaScript APIs) makes PNaCl the same as either an unsandboxed, proprietary, closed-source, non-OS-portable, non-CPU-portable Microsoft technology from the 90s, or a proprietary, closed-source Adobe technlogy from the 2000s? I think that may be a false dichotomy.

Well, PNaCl is poorly specified, difficult to implement for other browser vendors, and relies on a single implementation.

> PNaCl is poorly specified

Not sure that's fair: https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/reference/pn...

But even if all of those things was true, that makes it ok to call it ActiveX? By that logic I can call Firefox IE because it implements extensions to JavaScript that have not (yet) been standardized. But that wouldn't be fair and neither is calling PNaCl ActiveX.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#76

Post by haberman »

cpeterso wrote: post #61
timje1 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives a fraction of the performance that Firefox gives you. quick google, this guy[0] got IE10 = 11900, chrome = 22500, firefox = 40000 [0] http://www.beyondjava.net/blog/google-adds-asm-js-test-octan... If IE is giving you half the performance of the nearest, free, easily downloaded competitor in your favourite online game, you might be tempted to switch. And this is for the few users that are on IE10!

"Runs best in Mozilla Firefox" ;)

Two years ago when the tables were turned and Google announced Dart, which has the same compatibility strategy as asm.js (fastest with explicit support, falls back to regular JS), Brendan Eich had these harsh words for Google's move (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949):

    So "Works best in Chrome" and even "Works only in Chrome"
    are new norms promulgated intentionally by Google. We see
    more of this fragmentation every day. As a user of Chrome
    and Firefox (and Safari), I find it painful to experience,
    never mind the political bad taste.
But now "runs best in Mozilla Firefox" is cool?

I actually like asm.js and think it's a totally reasonable approach. I mention this only to highlight that maybe all of the bad-faith assumptions Google gets are not entirely deserved. Objectively these two are similar moves and I think they are both in good faith.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#79

Post by pcwalton »

haberman wrote: post #76
cpeterso wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Runs best in Mozilla Firefox" ;)

Two years ago when the tables were turned and Google announced Dart, which has the same compatibility strategy as asm.js (fastest with explicit support, falls back to regular JS), Brendan Eich had these harsh words for Google's move ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949 ): So "Works best in Chrome" and even "Works only in Chrome" are new norms promulgated intentionally by Google. We see more of this fragment…

Obviously I'm not Brendan or Chris Peterson, but I see there being two meanings of "works best in Firefox/Chrome": one of which is "Chrome/Firefox has a faster implementation of the standards" (which is what all browsers strive for—for the Web to "work best" in their browser), and the other of which is "Firefox/Chrome has a faster nonstandard implementation of X and there is a worse, standards-based fallback for browsers that don't support this vendor-specific extension", which is what I read Brendan's frustration as relevant to.

Re: First 3D Commercial Web Game Powered By asm.js

#80

Post by cpeterso »

pcwalton wrote: post #79
haberman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years ago when the tables were turned and Google announced Dart, which has the same compatibility strategy as asm.js (fastest with explicit support, falls back to regular JS), Brendan Eich had these harsh words for Google's move ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949 ): So "Works best in Chrome" and even "Works only in Chrome" are new norms promulgated intentionally by Google. We see more of this fragment…

Obviously I'm not Brendan or Chris Peterson, but I see there being two meanings of "works best in Firefox/Chrome": one of which is "Chrome/Firefox has a faster implementation of the standards" (which is what all browsers strive for—for the Web to "work best" in their browser), and the other of which is "Firefox/Chrome has a faster nonstandard implementation of X and there is a worse, standards-based fallback for brow…

By "runs best in Firefox", I just meant that Firefox executed asm.js content faster than Chrome (though the same standards-based content is compatible with all browsers). Google's "works best in Chrome" demos usually depend on non-standard features or the phrase is just marketing text.

I can't speak for Brendan, but I think his comment linked above was concerned that Dart and NaCl promote proprietary content types.

The Dart language is an interesting but incremental improvement like CoffeeScript and TypeScript. The Dart VM is a dead end because Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla will never embed Google's Dart VM. If Google merged Dartium's VM into Chrome, web servers would serve proprietary Dart content to Chrome and "separate but equal" JS content (generated from Dart) to other browsers. That approach would require extra tooling and testing from web developers and open the door to Google services serving exclusively Dart content. Imagine if YouTube only supported Chrome.

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