Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 10th Dec 2008 19:49 UTC, submitted by BluenoseJake
Google has released an early version of Native Client, a framework designed to run portable x86 binaries inside a web browser - in a sandbox. Native Client also includes technologies that allow for easier communication between JavaScript and Native Client executables, which makes it possible for web applications to leverage native code when it comes to processor intensive tasks. This sounds eerily similar to Microsoft's ActiveX - one of the biggest security failures of the Windows operating system. Google insists, however, that Native Client is much, much more secure.
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Member since:
2005-07-24
I'm not even sure what the advantages of running native code are supposed to be. Poor implementations of non-JIT Java with horrid support for UIs back during the heyday of Java "applets" combined with more years of poor implementations of non-JIT javascript have given portable runtimes (and the letters 'j', 'a', and 'v') a bad name. Java is really only a little clunky these days, and Javascript engines are getting ready to not suck. We're finally mostly rid of the rid of the ActiveX terror. This is not the time to be pushing native code. It's finally time to start pushing client-side Java and Javascript.
Then again, the guys at Google are a lot smarter than I am. So there must be some uber-rarified reason for doing this.
Edited 2008-12-10 20:41 UTC