The past, present and future of JS engines
Node+JS Interactive 2019
Montreal, Canada
@a0viedo
1958-1960
1970-1980
p-code machine (Pascal)
1980-1990
Important new concepts
adaptive optimization
generation garbage collection
The first wave
const userList = getUsers();
for (const user of userList) {
enrich(user)
}compiler
1990-2000
A decade of many languages
Programming languages
Java
JavaScript
Python
Number of PCs
The second wave
const userList = getUsers();
for (const user of userList) {
enrich(user)
}baseline JIT
optimizing JIT
2000-2010
Into the browser wars
Internet users
5%
of the world's population
JavaScriptCore (2008)
SpiderMonkey (2008)
V8 (2008)
2010-2020
The beginning of the mobile era
Internet users
28.7%
of the world's population
Optimization tradeoffs - memory
Optimization tradeoffs - latency
SpiderMonkey (2016)
ChakraCore (2016)
JavaScriptCore (2013)
JavaScriptCore (2016)
V8 (2016)
V8 (2016)
V8 (2017)
V8 (2017)
precise
conservative
V8
spidermonkey
JSC
ChakraCore
Garbage collectors
Pwn2Own Tokyo 2019
Pwn2Own Tokyo 2019
20k USD bounty for integer overflow that could end up in a reverse shell on a TV
60k USD bounty for integer overflow on Amazon Echo
2020-?
vs
more purpose-specific JavaScript engines?
like JerryScript, Duktape, Hermes...
Internet users
58.8%
of the world's population
bit.ly/ppf-js-engines
@a0viedo