Native Javascript

[chorlick]

Ive recently been tinkering around with the idea of writing/building
the software and hardware required to run javascript natively on a
hardware platform(some sort of fpga). I understand there are many
technical challenges to overcome and fully understand and realize just
how big a project like this would be. What im interested in hearing
from you the community, would be how well would a hardware platform
like this would be accepted and what would the major benefits of being
able to serve your OS dynamically over a wireless connection in JS
bytecode. Go...

 

[Peter Michaux]

Ive recently been tinkering around with the idea of writing/building
the software and hardware required to run javascript natively on a
hardware platform(some sort of fpga). I understand there are many
technical challenges to overcome and fully understand and realize just
how big a project like this would be. What im interested in hearing
from you the community, would be how well would a hardware platform
like this would be accepted and what would the major benefits of being
able to serve your OS dynamically over a wireless connection in JS
bytecode. Go...

If we had all of this stuff, what could we do that we can't do now?

Peter

 

[chorlick]

If we had all of this stuff, what could we do that we can't do now?

Peter

This is a great question Peter and really a restatement of my original
post. Im not really sure, having access to the exposed underlying
hardware would certainly seem beneficial in 3d graphics and audio
applications, also im sure there would a performance increase. The
idea of serving your whole OS and binary applications across a
wireless network in pure javascript seems very exciting. This grew out
of a conversation with friends where the topic was assuming the goog
has invested all of this time and money in developing most of the
elements of a an OS in javascript what is that OS's platform? Google
would have us believe that it's the browser itself but i think that an
actual hardware platform would be just as viable and perhaps even more
interesting.

Chris

 

[Bart Van der Donck]

This is a great question Peter and really a restatement of my original
post. Im not really sure, having access to the exposed underlying
hardware would certainly seem beneficial in 3d graphics and audio
applications, also im sure there would a performance increase. The
idea of serving your whole OS and binary applications across a
wireless network in pure javascript seems very exciting. This grew out
of a conversation with friends where the topic was assuming the goog
has invested all of this time and money in developing most of the
elements of a an OS in javascript what is that OS's platform? Google
would have us believe that it's the browser itself but i think that an
actual hardware platform would be just as viable and perhaps even more
interesting.

Your scenario sounds exciting, but to me it would seem unfeasible if
you stick to javascript, even with all its add-ons that you would
undoubtedly need: I/O, no sandbox, executive rights, ... and I would
definitely count on some large extra module with many more functions.
The name of the language already indicates that javascript is not the
best choice; the idea of *scripting* is to offer instructions to
another program to execute (interpret) them. It is still essentially a
script environment, although most will agree that javascript has
become much bigger than anyone would have predicted in the early days.

The default level on which javascript operates (and where javascript
is at its best IMHO), is not the ground level of OS tasks. There are
other languages that are much more suitable and effective in this
domain.

I also have difficulties with a few of your statements: why would
javascript access to hardware devices be such a big performance
boost ? I would at first sight expect the opposite. Is it really
practical/doable "to serve your OS dynamically" ? IMHO you can only
make this acceptable if the installation time is very short, which
requires an extremely tiny client. I don't think there is much sense
of reality here.

I recognize a few of your ideas in the philosophy of the upcoming
Google Chrome OS:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

In my opinion your plan has a few interesting conceptual aspects, but
not viable to do it in javascript. The idea of a dynamic operating
system is also a bridge too far for me.

 

[chorlick]

Your scenario sounds exciting, but to me it would seem unfeasible if
you stick to javascript, even with all its add-ons that you would
undoubtedly need: I/O, no sandbox, executive rights, ... and I would
definitely count on some large extra module with many more functions.
The name of the language already indicates that javascript is not the
best choice; the idea of *scripting* is to offer instructions to
another program to execute (interpret) them. It is still essentially a
script environment, although most will agree that javascript has
become much bigger than anyone would have predicted in the early days.

The default level on which javascript operates (and where javascript
is at its best IMHO), is not the ground level of OS tasks. There are
other languages that are much more suitable and effective in this
domain.

I also have difficulties with a few of your statements: why would
javascript access to hardware devices be such a big performance
boost ? I would at first sight expect the opposite. Is it really
practical/doable "to serve your OS dynamically" ? IMHO you can only
make this acceptable if the installation time is very short, which
requires an extremely tiny client. I don't think there is much sense
of reality here.

I recognize a few of your ideas in the philosophy of the upcoming
Google Chrome OS:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

In my opinion your plan has a few interesting conceptual aspects, but
not viable to do it in javascript. The idea of a dynamic operating
system is also a bridge too far for me.

Thanks for the response Bart very interesting points you make and idea
you bring up. I just wanted to note that the idea of a dynamic os is
actually very exciting for started you would only be charged for the
components you used. I think that get higher speeds out of a highly
javascript optimized processor wouldnt be too much of a challenge.
Implementing javascript in hardware would of course only naturally
speed up execution, and typically on orders of magnitude.