Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Microsoft enlists Mozilla to speed up JavaScript in Windows 10

news
Feb 19, 20152 mins

Microsoft's Chakra JavaScript engine is getting a performance boost courtesy of Mozilla's asm.js

Microsoft is looking to improve Web performance in Windows 10 by bringing in Mozilla’s asm.js JavaScript subset, for inclusion in Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine.

A post in the IEBlog Wednesday says asm.js has been moved to the “In Development” stage at status.modern.ie, noting that support for the technology has been a most-requested item in the Internet Explorer Platform Suggestion box. The team has looked at asm.js in the past few months and found it boosts JavaScript execution speed and guarantees interoperability across platforms and browsers.

“Asm.js is a clear step towards enabling near-native performance for the Web platform, which is why we’re excited to bring it to Chakra in an upcoming release,” said Guareth Seth and Ed Maurer, of the Chakra team, in the blog post. The headline of the post mentions inclusion of asm.js in Chakra in Windows 10, which is due some time this year.

Delivering an interoperable and specification-compliant JavaScript engine with the performance for modern experiences has been a key goal for since the inception of Chakra, Maurer and Seth said. “Bringing near-native performance for JavaScript code execution is a part of the same.”

Asm.js can be used as a target language for compilers and has been positioned to improve Web application performance and extend C and C++ applications to the Web. Microsoft has been working with the Firefox team handling asm.js. to help bring the technology to Chakra. Asm.js, the bloggers said, is leveraged principally by transpiling C/C++ code to run on the Web platform, utilizing technologies like WebGL.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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