At least some at Google want to embrace a Mozilla-backed project to speed up Web apps written with JavaScript -- even though it competes directly with Google's own Native Client and Dart programming technology.
Mozilla has been working for months on a technology called ASM.js, which it hopes will boost JavaScript performance, especially in combination with a related Mozilla-spawned technology called Emscripten. JavaScript powers Web apps such as Google Docs, and ASM.js is a special "extremely restricted" subset of the programming language that's designed to make it easier for developers to bring existing software written in the C programming language to the Web.
Yesterday, Mozilla held a coming-out party for ASM.js, announcing a cooperation with Epic to bring its Unreal game engine to ASM.js. The same day, Google effectively announced a plan to support it within Chrome's V8 engine that processes JavaScript.
"Optimizations should be added to V8 to generate good code for the ASM.js subset of JavaScript," Chrome programmer Kenneth Russell said in a Chrome feature-tracking item for ASM.js. "The implementation cost should be small compared to the potential upside -- the ability to run significant existing code bases with close to the speed of C inside the JavaScript engine."
Securing support from other browser makers is crucial to the success of a programming technology. Without that support, programmers can only target a single browser, which undermines the advantages of universality that the Web can offer.
Google didn't respond to a request for comment about its position on the matter.
Browser makers often ally to bring a new technology to market and to help coax Web programmers to use it. What's particularly notable about Google's support is that the company already has other competing projects well under way.
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