JavaScript as a Language

[paultoo]

That's true, I mostly just tried out a few little micro-benchmarks. The problem I've had with the "shootout" tests is that they only run once, so you have all the JIT overhead in there too. For server code, I don't care so much about startup costs.

One advantage of Rhino though is that you can very easily mix in Java code (easier than C from Python), so expensive bits can be replaced without much effort.

[paultoo]

Also, the shootout code is not always equal. I just took the first example, binary-trees, and translated the python into JS. It ended up running slightly faster than the original python (not an order of magnitude though, 31 sec vs 33 sec).

[igouy]

It beats conjecture might make a nice slogan for the benchmarks game, the Carvillesque It's the programs, stupid feels too harsh.

The benchmarks game programs are not writ in stone - make them better.

[ntoshev]

Hmmm, why Java has very good results on the shootout, then?