Google's Native Client (NaCl) is a browser technology to deliver native x86 binaries to users on Windows, Mac and Linux. Whilst this bridges the gap between modern JavaScript speeds and native binaries, portability is limited and that's especially important on the web where there's greater device diversity than on the desktop. Google are announcing that NaCl now also supports x86-64 and ARM. In addition to this Google are also announcing the ANGLE project, an open source compatibility layer to map WebGL (OpenGL ES for the web) to DirectX calls for Windows systems without an OpenGL library.
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Member since:
2005-11-21
and especially Apple for all the heavy lifting of Clang and even LLVM with major contributors:
http://llvm.org/devmtg/2009-10/
Member since:2006-01-04
Sure, maybe they should do that. But then again they probably owe a lot more of their success to GCC than to LLVM and they don't contribute a lot to GCC either.
Hell, even Apple owes a lot to GCC.
That is the beauty of FOSS anybody can profit from it even without giving back anything.
And calling the LLVM stuff bytecode may be correct in a way, but LLVM is really LL low level, much more so than the JVM. It is more like assembly for a fairly generic CPU that maps well to real CPUs, isn't it?
Member since:
2009-08-14
Member since:2005-11-10
Apple haven't done this because it would sour their relationship with Google, which they ship as default on the iPhone and Safari--though Apple are doing plenty besides to sour that relationship anyway.
Microsoft haven't done that because it would be called anti-competitive, effectively killing the advertising market since IE holds such a high share. As far as I'm aware, only Camino ships an ad blocker by default.
Apple are doing plenty to kill the advertising market (at least the non-Google part of it) by keeping Flash off the menu.
There's no easy way to compete with Google. They're device and platform agnostic. All Microsoft can do is force people to use Bing, and all Apple can do is downplay the web by use of the App Store.
Member since:2007-03-26
Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:
2006-02-25
LLVM should be the way to go for every platform. It's not there yet but it should be able to provide a bytecode (to which C/C++ or any other LLVN language can be compiled to) that then will be converted to native in every platform. That would be an enormous boost to google's cause because it will be able to provide the endless amount of existing C/C++ apps as a web service.
Member since:2006-02-25
Member since:
2010-02-09
for obvious reasons.
Gaming-- at least so-called 'casual' gaming-- is moving more and more to the web. Casual gaming especially is usually designed to be cross-platform, and this would simply improve the possibilities.
If Apple and Microsoft want to suck lemons about it, I guess they will, but this should be exciting to most any up-and-coming game developer that simply wants their game to be seen. Gaming has already been so hamstrung by DirectX and I really do think this will accommodate the future direction it is taking. (Well, I'll admit my selfish bias and say it offers me more accessibility as a GNU/Linux user.)
Member since:
2009-02-20
Member since:2009-08-26