I just committed the initial revision of mozilla/js/tamarin, the open-source ActionScript Virtual Machine contributed by Adobe. But I had nothing to do with this fine work. It’s the product of some talented folks at Adobe (originally at Macromedia; at least one of whom has moved on and is doing a startup).
Tamarin, the open-source AVM, is the JIT-oriented JavaScript VM that I mentioned in my last post. We have already developed, via a two-day marathon hacking session, a set of proof-of-concept patches to integrate it with SpiderMonkey. The resulting Franken-VM was compiling and linking when I last laid hands on it, but not quite limping. This exercise produced many insights to guide more durable integration. And it was great fun interacting with the new open-source contributors from Adobe, whom I would like to welcome to Mozilla:
My apologies to those whose names I haven’t yet learned. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know most of the above-named folks through the ECMA TG1 (JavaScript standards) group. They are good people and skillful hackers, and I’m grateful that they are adding their strength to the Mozilla project.
I should point out that, although Adobe did not release open source for its existing, free AS3 compiler, it did contribute a self-hosting (AS3-in-AS3) compiler prototype written by Jeff Dyer. We intend to develop this jointly into an ES4/JS2 self-hosting compiler, implementing the full and final ECMA-262 Edition 4 spec when it is done. In the mean time, if you want to generate ABC for Tamarin, you have open source options.
I’ll be on IRC in a little over nine hours to chat about this great news and answer questions, and then I’m off to Web 2.0. Later this week I will blog again about some early progress on another Mozilla 2 front.
/be
Update: Frank Hecker of the Mozilla Foundation clearly and concisely answers many basic questions about What This All Means, questions to which I tend to give short shrift in this too-technical blog of mine. Recommended.
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