back to article Google speeds Chrome JavaScript engine with 'Crankshaft'

Google has uncloaked a new incarnation of the V8 JavaScript engine that underpins its Chrome browser. Dubbed "Crankshaft," the updated engine is roughly 50 per cent faster on Google's own V8 benchmark suite, according to the company's internal tests. Google vice president of product management Sundar Pinchai revealed the …

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  1. Anonymous Bastard
    Boffin

    Am I the first?

    "compared with the 2008 incarnation of Microsoft Internet Explorer, it's one hundred times faster." "Something that took a minute to execute two years ago takes a second to execute today,"

    So that would be sixty times faster...

    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      Paris Hilton

      Why...

      ...would anyone write a script on a webpage that would take 1 minute to execute in the first place?

      1. Miek

        Why?

        ... Ask TippingPoint they excel in writing bloated JavaScript for their IPS interfaces.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Massively distributed computing

        After all, you're not actually using that 2.8GHz MacBook Pro with 4 gig of RAM for anything important are you?

        So while you're visiting my website, I'm increasing my SETI@home score.

      3. Adam Nealis

        Have you been to Orange's web site at all?

        I know it's probably not a JS problem, just a really sucky app server backend.

    2. Tzael

      Re: Am I the first?

      '100 times faster than pre-Chrome Internet Explorer'

      Yeah, comparing it to Internet Explorer 7 - what a perfect comparison!

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        WTF?

        Re: Re: Am I the first?

        Apparently the new Ferrari looks stonkingly quick when compared to the Ford Anglia too.....

  2. Brian
    WTF?

    No mention of IE9?

    Seems telling that they don't mention how it compares to the javascript engine in IE9.

    1. Lance 3

      Beta

      You mean a browser that is in beta and things can change between now and release?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Lance 3

        A valid comparison - This release of Chrome's engine isn't in a production release either.

        I'm not a fan of rough 'this is 100x better' rough estimates - show us some proper stats.

    2. Annihilator
      Happy

      @Brian

      It's brilliant - I'm going to downgrade all my machines to IE7, so that when the new Chrome comes along I can appreciate the speed increase all the more.

      In fact, hell, I'm going back to IE6. Or has anyone run a comparison to Netscape Navigator 4.0?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Crankshaft

    Was there grease applied to the Crankshaft ? Do pages come on your screen faster as a result?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Grease is too viscous.

      They used SUNdar flower oil.

  4. Bob 18

    Nothing New...

    I marvel that they present this as "new" technology. Adaptive compilers have been around for a while now --- Java, .NET and probably others have them. The only "new" thing here is the technology is being applied to the bastard child language of the web, known as JavaScript.

    The thing that took sixty seconds to run two years ago and now completes in one second --- it took only a second for the past decade in Java or .NET. And it's always run in a second in C.

    Microsoft has the right idea with Silverlight --- client-side stuff is better programmed in a real language.

    1. Anton Ivanov
      Flame

      That is just hotspot by another name

      I can imagine the Snoracl legal team reaction to this one:

      I love the smell of lawsuits early in the morning, It smells ... it smells like victory!

      The Java crowd has patented this left right and center long ago.

    2. GotenXiao

      That may be true

      But if it is, why would you use a toy language like Silverlight built by a company who do not like, want or support platforms not their own? It's the antithesis of the web's portability.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      Real language blah blah blah ....

      ... the problem is that silverlight doesn't really work on my real operating system.

      You know, the one that doesn't reduce my netbook to a dreamlike sopor of crawling through tar.

    4. Lewis Mettler 1
      Stop

      it would sound

      It would sound like javascript is about to be on par with native code.

      And that would mean that a cross platform application is much easier to accomplish.

      Of course Microsoft is never for anything that gives a customer a choice.

      1. bazza Silver badge

        Really?

        >It would sound like javascript is about to be on par with native code.

        I don't think so. Java and .NET are no where near as quick as a properly written native C/C++ app, and I can't see that there's anything special about Javascript that makes its JIT compiler any better. My own benchmarking on some relatively modest maths loops has .NET being 80 times slower than a properly written C equivalent. Just because someone's Javascript app is udpating in the blink of an eye doesn't mean to say that it's as quick as a native app. Eye blinks are really quite slow.

    5. CD001

      Yeeeeeeee-es

      ----

      client-side stuff is better programmed in a real language.

      ----

      So I suggest we do away with browsers entirely and have a compiled application for every website - great idea.

      ... hang on - isn't that just an app store?

      btw - .NET isn't a language - it's a framework compatible with many languages... in some ways it's a bit like ye olde Common Gateway Interface. Viewed from a certain angle you could say it's a bastard lovechild spawned by Microsoft when they discovered the WWW (OK, that was the god-awfulness of ASP first).

      - please, can we ban Microsoft advocates from posting on articles relating to the web? They obviously don't understand it.

    6. Ainteenbooty
      Thumb Down

      @Bob 18

      Micro who? Oh, those people with the dwindling customer base. You have fun writing code for that proprietary plugin with the illusion that you're presenting information for mass consumption.

      I didn't realize there were still people in this world who misdefine the word computer to mean windows-compatible-device. The point of the web is to reach EVERYBODY. You should stick to writing your .NET apps; they will reach the same user base with better performance.

      I thought Flash was wasted developer time, but Silverlight blows it completely out of the water in that regard.

    7. Tom Samplonius
      Stop

      @ Bob 18

      "Microsoft has the right idea with Silverlight --- client-side stuff is better programmed in a real language."

      I guess I mean "... had the right idea with Silverlight..." as MS has killed Silverlight as a browser technology. It is just for phones and STBs now. And I guess they weren't right about that at all, as MS is saying that HTML5 (and Javascript) is the best for the browser.

      It kind of sucks to be a dev who wrote a bunch of Sliverlight stuff, only to have MS announce it is EOL.

  5. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Competition Good

    Whilst everyone else is giving negative comments, I'd like to say that I think this shows why monopolies are a bad thing. Competition is giving us faster, better browsers, and giving us users choice.

    Fanbois may say "but X copies Y", but that's what happens in a healthy competitive market. X does copy Y, and then adds a little bit to it too.

    Also, we're getting all of this for free !

    Long may it last !

  6. bitmap animal
    Happy

    Decimal time, here we go again!

    Is this another attempt to move the world over to decimal time? It's been tried a few times in the past but never managed to get enough momentum. Now there is Google behind it perhaps it will happen.

    "it's one hundred times faster. "Something that took a minute to execute two years ago takes a second to execute today," Pinchai said."

    (or is it an otherwise boring slip of the tongue)

  7. SilverWave
    Linux

    so... can Mozilla rip this for Firefox?

    I love open source...

    :-D

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Fingers crossed

      ..as that way, more people benefit. Not being a narrow-minded advocate weenie, I welcome all sorts of overlords, and enpinchening of cool hacks from any browser into whichever browser is my current weapon of choice..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      I doubt it...

      ...given the level of incompetency exhibited by the geniuses in the Mozilla "team". Bugzilla for ex, has issues dating back to 2001... whether it's just that they can't be fixed or nobody can be arsed, is anyone's guess.

  8. Syntax Error
    WTF?

    Exciting Stuff

    I'm so excited.

  9. JDX Gold badge
    FAIL

    Silverlight a toy language?

    Yeah, .net is just a fad. Nobody uses C#.

    1. Lewis Mettler 1
      Stop

      only those forced to purchase IE

      Only those forced to purchase IE.

      All consumers rather have a choice to NOT purchase it. And that is true regardless of what the technology might happen to be.

      Only salesman think a forced sale is good.

    2. CD001

      If it ain't C++ it's a toy language innit? *meh*

      TBH I've never met anyone who uses C#; C++ yes, Java yes - but oh yeah, we work on servers not MS client desktops.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        C++++

        I use C#, or C++++ as I prefer to say.

        Hence the AC!

        1. Paul M 1

          Title

          Personally I prefer to call it D-flat.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Megaphone

        well...

        get out more....

        I believe they say it's what you do with it that counts...

  10. Peter X

    Re: Have you been to Orange's web site at all?

    [slightly-OT-rant]

    Nothing can help the Orange website. It frequently doesn't work -- enter details, submit, wait... wait... wait... and *then* it says it's not working and to try later --and even when it does work it's slow. And it's been exactly like this since... I dunno... 2005 or earlier maybe? I think the only reason Orange exist is because of good branding/advertising. Also their mobile network is acceptably reliable. Everything else Orange is kind of sucky though.

    [/slightly-OT-rant]

  11. ThomH

    Well into diminishing returns now, surely?

    Google still seems to be fighting the last war while Microsoft skipped that one and are aiming to make hardware rendering of interactive content the next flashpoint. I'll wager that however much the Chrome beta reduces Javascript execution time, it's still behind the IE9 beta on canvas content. And I'm saying this reluctantly as a Mac user to whom the IE9 engine isn't going to be available.

    Today I'm going to add up the total number of seconds I lose to waiting for Javascript to execute.

  12. Sid James
    Go

    Comparisons

    Sunspider totals:

    9.0.597.10 Developer release 301.6ms

    10.0.603.3 Canary release 262.7ms

    4 tenths of a second over the entire run?

    1. Fuzz

      tenths?

      300 - 260 = 40ms

      That would be 40 thousandths or 4 hundredths.

      Of course your point is even more valid. The difference is minimal and it's only impressive compared to old versions of IE.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    4 tenths of a second over the entire run?

    Yes; that's 100x faster.

  14. Robert Grant

    Erm, Tracemonkey?

    Isn't hotspot compilation what Tracemonkey does as well?

    And while I'm here, what's with the author's constant use of "quoted phrases" to describe what's going on? Isn't that how "teenagers" write their "geography reports" when they don't want to "take responsibility" for what they're writing?

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