Adobe AIR is a new system to allow typical web applications to better integrate in the desktop. This includes access to file system resources, a local SQL database, and a controlable chrome for the "browser" window and some other goodies. The whole thing uses Webkit to render HTML pages. This is a great choice -- for qooxdoo based applications Webkit currently easily outperforms the other engines.
I have integrated AIR into the build system (trunk only). For a small demonstration I have created an AIR based API-Viewer of the current trunk. This can be used as an offline application. Including all API data the download is about 700 KB which is really small. (I had to zip the download again because of security limitations features of wordpress.)
In the current trunk each skeleton based application can be converted to an AIR application easily. Just execute "make air" in the root folder of your application. Unfortunately this feature required changes in a lot of files. This will be a trunk-only feature for now and will not be backported to legacy_0_7_x.
Recently we have been puzzled by some statements of Brendan Eich, the creator of the JavaScript programming language.
In Brendan's blog he wrote "For Mozilla 2, we will have a JIT-oriented JavaScript VM (details soon) that supports the forthcoming ECMAScript Edition 4 ("JS2") language" (October 13, 2006). Well, could hardly wait for any details. Another statement that made us curious was at The Ajax Experience this fall. In his slides about JavaScript 2.0 he mentioned "Open source optimizing VMs coming soon. Look for an announcement in a few weeks" (October 25, 2006). Interestingly, this mysterious announcement was in a section he called "JavaScript Fun Facts".
Well done Brendan, you are our Master of Suspense! Finally, as a revelation today came the announcement that is going to boost JavaScript. Congratulations to Adobe for their decision of contributing the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) as open source to the Mozilla project. And a warm open-source welcome to all the developers of the AVM! The code has just been committed into the Mozilla repository.
This is great news for qooxdoo being a client-side JavaScript framework. Performance has always been one of our major concerns, and we think we have pushed the limit for JavaScript based web applications, e.g. for qooxdoo's powerful browser-independent layout engine. Can't wait to tweak the last bit of performance out of any new Mozilla browser backed by the new JavaScript VM. This is going to change the future of browser-based applications. Cheers!
In my opinion there was never a reason why JavaScript should be slower than other typical script languages e.g. Python, Perl, Ruby, ... With the newest committment from Abobe to Mozilla we could reach a new level of performance in web applications.
As news.com reports "Adobe will provide the same software, called the ActionScript Virtual Machine, which it uses to run script code in the Adobe Flash Player 9. This virtual machine is expected to be built into future versions of the Firefox browser by the first half of 2008, said Frank Hecker, the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation."
