The Elusive Universal Web Bytecode

Re:The Elusive Universal Web Bytecode by TazeTSchnitzel on Thursday March 26, 2015 @02:01PM (#9271768)

> So why did the author throw out LLVM byte code again? It's BSD, it has bytecode compilers for most platforms browsers exist on (100% vs. 50% speed), and doesn't rely on a subset of another language. It also doesn't have the requirement to fall back to vanilla Javascript. As an added bonus, Javascript could easily compile down to LLVM bytecode.

LLVM has a single implementation, is very complex, isn't even remotely portable, and is primarily suited to C and C++, or similar languages.

We also already have a very performant transformation format for LLVM IR into JS: asm.js. And asm.js fixes most of LLVM IR's problems:

* It's very simple

* It's portable across architectures

* It doesn't have undefined behaviour

* It has multiple implementations

* It has forwards-compatibility (existing browsers, regardless of explicit support, can run asm.js code)

* It is standardised

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Re:The Elusive Universal Web Bytecode by rictic on Thursday March 26, 2015 @03:40PM (#9272504)

Well put. One nit: I think you mean backwards compatibility, though asm.js can also be expected to work without modification in future browsers and future versions of javascript.

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Re:The Elusive Universal Web Bytecode by TazeTSchnitzel on Thursday March 26, 2015 @08:19PM (#9274040)

Yeah, I originally put backwards-compatibility, but I wasn't sure if forwards-compatibility was the right word for allowing old software to use new code.

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