Safari To Get JavaScript Speed Enhancements

[shawnce]

What did apple open? again?

Apple (among others) have successfully pushed for video and audio to become first class elements of HTML (HTML 5) instead of being relegated to browser plugins. They pushed for the video and audio encoding used to be ones that are open standards with low-cost / no-cost encoders. They are doing similar things with CSS animations, etc. with the obvious goal being to have these capabilities codified in an open standard that all vendors can participate in instead of a few.

Anyway Apple during the last decade has made large efforts to covert their "systems" over to use open standards as much as possible getting away from proprietary codecs, etc. In fact Apple is one of the reasons that H.264 and related codecs are so prevalent on the web today despite the best efforts of some vendors.

Why is Apple doing this? ...because it levels the playing field and undermines their main competitors...

 

[plinden]

I posted some test results I did in another thread - I should have posted here but didn't spend long enough looking.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5533390&posted=1#post5533390

Anyway, to summarize, I found the first version of SquirrelFish is indeed the fastest Javascript parser on OS X and XP.

 

[sebastianlewis]

I don't believe so, first flash and silverlight are not web-standards, silverlight is not even a practical using standard since not many ppl use it after all.

Also, apple can first open its QuickTime, if they really want to fully open the web.

Its naive thinking to portray apple as "holier than others", Apple isn't trying to do anything that doesn't benefit itself.

To talk about open to others, last time I checked, SUN opened JAVA, Adobe started Open Screen Project to gradually open flash. M$ tried and opened up partially the office format.

What did apple open? again?

I agree with you that Apple is not holier than thou, however they did open up the Quicktime format as MPEG-4 Part 12 as the base for MPEG-4 Part 14. Also the WebKit team implemented the audio and video tags of HTML5 to try and help push that standard, if it succeeds than stuff like Flash and Quicktime won't be needed to playback audio and video on the web, although Safari still uses Quicktime to make it possible, I think WebKit/GTK+ is using Gstreamer though... hmm.

Sebastian

 

[dal20402]

it will make Safari snappier!!!

ROFL...

 

[elppa]

I don't believe so, first flash and silverlight are not web-standards, silverlight is not even a practical using standard since not many ppl use it after all.

Standards can be de-facto standards as well. Since flash is installed on >90% of computers and is used for most web video I think it is a standard. Silverlight is still relevant, because it is Microsoft backed and Microsoft are the world's biggest software company trying to stake their claim on the web.

Also, apple can first open its QuickTime, if they really want to fully open the web.

Quicktime is less of a web standard than flash, Quicktime is the multimedia framework for OS X. Apart from that there is no reason for Apple to open Quicktime when all it is mainly used to play back are standard formats such as AAC and H.264. Any other media playback software can do this should they chose to, so there is no lock in.

Its naive thinking to portray apple as "holier than others", Apple isn't trying to do anything that doesn't benefit itself.

Yes, but I have never portrayed Apple as holier than thou. And no commercial company should be doing anything other than looking after their own interests. It would be inappropriate to do anything else.

To talk about open to others, last time I checked, SUN opened JAVA, Adobe started Open Screen Project to gradually open flash. M$ tried and opened up partially the office format.

What did apple open? again?

Off the top of my head:
Darwin
Webkit
CUPS
LLVM
Quicktime (Darwin) Streaming Server

The MS “partial” open office format is the biggest self-serving joke ever. They had to rig votes to get it through as a standard. The documentation (although long) is wooly, confusing and incomplete. Really poor example.

Not only that, Apple makes use of many other open source technologies and standards. That's what they are there for after all.

It's not as impressive as companies like Sun, but it's not bad either. Many of these projects were open source and picked up by Apple, but have benefited from their cash.

 

[charlieMonroe]

We might see the new Safari coming out on Monday: https://trac.webkit.org/browser/branches/WWDC-2008-branch - that's a WebKit branch labeled WWDC-2008 with Squirrelfish merged in.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

We might see the new Safari coming out on Monday: https://trac.webkit.org/browser/branches/WWDC-2008-branch - that's a WebKit branch labeled WWDC-2008 with Squirrelfish merged in.

Thanks for the report! Clever eye there... I'm looking forward to this.

 

[clevin]

Off the top of my head:
Darwin
Webkit
CUPS
LLVM
Quicktime (Darwin) Streaming Server
.

omg, this is unbelievable, how can apple just purchased CUPS couple of months ago and turn around in your words as if they developed it and opened it? it was an full featured system before the transaction.

webkit is not opened by apple neither, in case you forgot, KHTML has been a full featured browser for ages before apple took it. if anything, apple tried to made it as close as it can for a while.

Darwin is a mixture of NEXTSTEP, Apple codes, FreeBSD and other OSS components, to imply that apple own them all is also untrue and misleading.

LLVM? apple has some ppl working at LLVM group means apple owns it and opens it? where is that logic? IBM, Ubuntu, redhat all have ppl working on Unix, Linux, or firefox, I didn't see them claim they opened Linux or firefox. LLVM was, and is an independent OSS group at UIUC.

You want to say apple contribute $$$ and work force in OSS? thats fine with me.

But to say apple aggressively open the stuff that used to be closed. as you implied in original post. Its absurd statement.

 

[elppa]

omg, this is unbelievable, how can apple just purchased CUPS couple of months ago and turn around in your words as if they developed it and opened it? it was an full featured system before the transaction.

OMG! Can't you read? I've already covered this.

Many of these projects were open source and picked up by Apple.

So yes, Apple recognises great open source software and make a contribution to it. They have also opened up some of their own stuff, like Quicktime Streaming Server, Bonjour and the Keychain.

I can't really see what point you are trying to make:
Is it that recognising and improving great open source software is less important than opening up current software?

Why is this relevant? Why do you draw the distinction? What difference does it make? I'm really confused by your arguments.

You need to understand the bigger picture: Having some proprietary hooks is sometimes important for making money. Apple has many stake holders not just the FOSS community (shareholders for one). They need to balance everyone's needs and sometimes that means keeping things closed. Commercial software can still be very good. Apple balances both quite skilfully.

 

[Trip.Tucker]

I have JavaScript turned off in Safari. Webpages take much, much less time loading now. I'm learning to live without it entirely.

I don't know how.... so many sites are employing ajax and some javascript to facilitate the content.

 

[Trip.Tucker]

omg, this is unbelievable, how can apple just purchased CUPS couple of months ago and turn around in your words as if they developed it and opened it? it was an full featured system before the transaction.

webkit is not opened by apple neither, in case you forgot, KHTML has been a full featured browser for ages before apple took it. if anything, apple tried to made it as close as it can for a while.

Darwin is a mixture of NEXTSTEP, Apple codes, FreeBSD and other OSS components, to imply that apple own them all is also untrue and misleading.

LLVM? apple has some ppl working at LLVM group means apple owns it and opens it? where is that logic? IBM, Ubuntu, redhat all have ppl working on Unix, Linux, or firefox, I didn't see them claim they opened Linux or firefox. LLVM was, and is an independent OSS group at UIUC.

You want to say apple contribute $$$ and work force in OSS? thats fine with me.

But to say apple aggressively open the stuff that used to be closed. as you implied in original post. Its absurd statement.

You, sir, make no sense at all.

 

[Trip.Tucker]

This is not the best idea, although they really shouldn't some sites rely on them. If you are writing a .NET web application and use the built in components then javascript is hard to avoid.



Apple is trying to eliminate proprietary standards from the web i.e. flash, silverlight which means the web stays open, interoperable and not controlled by any one vendor.

It's quite a noble effort and some of the stuff you can do with CSS in webkit (which will get rolled into standards) can rival some flash stuff (annimation, masks, vector graphics etc.). Apple's website is flash free, yet still has interactivity.

That said I doubt they appreciate the flash experience is bad on the Mac, but this as Arn correctly points out, this is Adobe's problem to solve and they probably won't get much help from Cupertino.



Smokin'. Thanks for the stats, that's pretty interesting. Bookmarked.

...don't forget CSS 3 which will bring in some really cool new functionality.