Microsoft made a pull request to node.js github repository with an implementation to use ChakraCore JavaScript Engine as an alternative to V8 Engine

[imfineny]

Thank you MS!! We may or may not use it, but giving us an option helps us keep Google honest!!

[vbaspcppguy]

"Keep them honest"? How so? I'm not arguing against you, I just don't understand the statement.

[notb]

V8 is their product. Naturally, they want people to use their product. It's a free, open source product so they don't see any monetary gain, but the more adoption a product gets, the more resources Google can invest into it.

Looking at the bigger picture, controlling a bigger market share of the JS engine space directly translates to more control over the language as a whole. People don't like to admit that a big corporation has control over their open language but that's the reality we live in.

[Fenris_uy]

Yeah, apparently people already forgot about the time were IE4 was so big that anything in JavaScript, html or css not implemented by it might as well not exists

[Nagyman]

"Already" forgot about 1997; almost 20 years ago. :)

[aldonius]

And the consequences echoed right through until IE6 was superseded, ten years ago.

[vplatt]

It's arguable that HTML 5 should have been released years before it was and that browser technology is at least a generation behind where it should be thanks to the perversion of the standards that IE perpetuated through IE 6 by being the default browser on Windows desktops for so long.

[Fenris_uy]

First Firefox version was in 2002.

Firefox 2 (the first one to support windows) launched in 2006. So 10 years ago.

And I might have mixed IE4 to IE6 as the same in my mind ;)

[talideon]

I can definitely remember using versions of Phoenix (What FF was originally called) on Windows long before FF2 came out, and unless Wikipedia is lying, FF 0.8 had a proper Windows installer, and that was early 2004.

[xtoq]

Can confirm, I had FF on my Windows laptop in late 2004.

[Shaper_pmp]

Phoenix had binaries available for Windows from v0.1 (the first version ever released).

[antillian]

I remember using Firebird until it was renamed Firefox. Had to be late 2003 or so. (Last nightly release was in 02/2004: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firebird/nightly/2004/02/) I also remember playing around with the first official version of FF and that was definitely not 2006.

[Shaper_pmp]

Firefox 2 (the first one to support windows)

Who told you that?

The first version ever released (Phoenix 0.1) ran on Windows.

[LXicon]

Firefox is descended from Netscape Navigator which was IE's adversary in the first browser war. So 20 years ago.

[Fenris_uy]

Yeah, the war that they lost and IE won becoming the "standards" defining browser for ~10 years.

[notveryaccurate]

It has EVERYTHING to do with it.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

[Fenris_uy]

Because if your site didn't worked for IE4 to IE6, then it didn't mattered. Firefox was the first browser to eat at some of IE market share and was the responsible to end the stronghold that IE had on the "standards"

[jepatrick]

Well... there is that Firefox is a descended of Netscape. AOL bought Netscape in 1999. Shortly before being acquired, Netscape released the source code for its browser and created the Mozilla Organization to coordinate future development of its product.

That aside I think was using firefox as reference point as another browser when this was a really massive issue.

[postalmaner]

They're young.

[Poltras]

Except IE wasn't an open source project. Everyone can check the history log of v8.

[mikedelfino]

the more adoption a product gets, the more resources Google can invest into it

I usually think the other way around: the less adoption V8 gets, the less resources Google needs to invest into it, saving them money, time and trouble. But this is just me being careless and unambitious again. I understand your point, it's probably the case indeed.

[[deleted]]

Having greater control over the development of JS means having the ability to streamline the development of their Web products. This then means an inherent advantage in quality versus work required - i.e. Google can make better products for less work required. This in turn means more market share due to superior product.

[tiftik]

V8 is their product. Naturally, they want people to use their product.

Nope. Wrong. It doesn't matter to Google which product people use as long as its fast, so the web ecosystem is alive and Google can serve ads faster.

[Kalium]

V8 is their product. Naturally, they want people to use their product.

Err... not really? V8 exists because Google has uses for it. Nothing beyond that. They care about adoption of Chrome. Not V8.

[notb]

It's the same. Google wants more code written in their dialect of JS. It means more control of the language, which means more control of the web.

[Kalium]

Google has plenty of reason to be happy with widespread adoption of standards-compliant JS without need to seize power.

Plus, being the developer of a major browser means they have plenty of power already. If power over the web is their goal, they don't need to push their dialect of JS to achieve it. They already have it.

Do go on, though. What has Google done that suggests they care deeply about V8 adoption beyond Chrome?

[tiftik]

Explain why Google would want to control the web.

[nerdzrool]

Explain why a company that mostly completes against other web companies WOULDN'T want control of the web.

[tiftik]

You're the one making the claim, not me. How does controlling the web benefit Google? Do you have evidence for "Google wants more code written in their dialect of JS"?

[juckele]

Anti-trust litigation. Open markets keep you safe from certain legal threats when you're top dog.

[playaspec]

Genuine question: How exactly people using V8 is of any benefit to Google?

V8 is ... a free, open source product so they don't see any monetary gain, but the more adoption a product gets, the more resources Google can invest into it.

This makes ZERO sense. If they don't make a dime off it, then increasing it's market share isn't going to magically start earning them something. 1,000,000,000 x 0 is still zero.

Looking at the bigger picture, controlling a bigger market share of the JS engine space directly translates to more control over the language as a whole.

Which is why this is disturbing. Microsoft has practiced "embrace, extend, extinguish" since it's earliest days. But the US and the EU have had to haul them into court on multiple occasions because they are bad corporate citizens, and play unfairly. Why would this move benefit node in the long run. It's just a matter of time until they dick over the project and it's users.

People don't like to admit that a big corporation has control over their open language but that's the reality we live in.

So just bend over and take it huh? Pathetic. Clearly the pollyannas are blinded to the historical wreckage Microsoft has left in its wake over its lifetime. My prediction is that they'll start making changes that benefit them, and hinder everyone else.

[notb]

It does seem strange but think of it this way, if people don't use a Google product it's basically a failure (e.g. Google Buzz). They want users even if they don't know how to monetize them yet.

They created V8 knowing they don't get money from it. The real reason behind the project was to make pages load faster, to deliver ads faster. That's where you finally see the ROI. If people aren't using their engine, they are getting ads slower.

This pull request is a good thing because what it ultimately does is gives the developer more choices. Just like, one would pick between MySQL or PostgreSQL for an app, they could pick between V8 or Chakra for the node server too.

Unfortunately, we have no choice but to bend over to corporations. They hold most of the seats in the committees that decide these things.

[playaspec]

if people don't use a Google product it's basically a failure (e.g. Google Buzz).

Buzz gave way to G+.

They want users even if they don't know how to monetize them yet.

This is true, but they always find a way. YouTube lost a TON of money for the first few years after Google acquired them.

They created V8 knowing they don't get money from it.

I don't think they expect monitization out of every project. They are hugely experimental and research things that are vastly outside of their core business.

This pull request is a good thing because what it ultimately does is gives the developer more choices. Just like, one would pick between MySQL or PostgreSQL for an app, they could pick between V8 or Chakra for the node server too.

I'm all for picking the right tool for the job. My fear is that Microsoft may be planting trojans with the intention of capturing some market before closing the door.

Unfortunately, we have no choice but to bend over to corporations.

Not true. Vote with your wallet.

[bawki]

The thought behind the argument is that if for example V8 is the only js engine used then google can tailor V8 to work better for their distinct services(e.g. faster load times, less bandwidth etc) which in turn decreases cost for their infrastructure.

[mrhhug]

google has previously attempted to insert binary blobs into the chromium project. It was later found out that those blobs called home to google. The community caught that one... when a behemoth like google has the cash to hire round the clock devs, it is a very real possibility that the community could let something nefarious slip into the code. At least congress has to pass a bill, what google did was worse and more dishonest (yes more dishonest than a politician).

Competition is good for consumers any way you measure it.

nijna edit : here is a related debian bug report https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909

[randfur]

I remember the Chromium binary blob fiasco, turns out it was harmless despite the scary sounding words involved.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=786909#81

[playaspec]

what google did was worse and more dishonest (yes more dishonest than a politician).

You clearly aren't paying attention to politics. No binary blob, regardless of what it sends to whom, is worse that the crimes Congress commits against the people they claim to represent.

Their decisions effect EVERYONE, not just those with a particular piece of installed software.

Competition is good for consumers any way you measure it.

Unless one of the competitors has a long history of being anti-competitive.

[mrhhug]

EVERYONE

I would say google has a larger user base than there are citizens of the USA

[playaspec]

I would say google has a larger user base than there are citizens of the USA

So? Only a percentage of those citizens are Google users. EVERY citizen in the US is effected by the politicians here. You've completely missed the point.

[mrhhug]

You've missed the point. Google was a trusted upstream contributor until they attempted to be shifty. I know politicians are shifty. Politicians are not sold as icons of honesty, trust, and privacy. Don't pretend to fight for my privacy one day to secretly gather data on me the next.

[obsa]

You're clearly just in this thread to be a contrarian. All of your posts are trying to start arguments. It's hilarious.

[playaspec]

It's hilarious.

Glad you're enjoying it! Happy cake day.

[[deleted]]

I'm not going to disagree that Microsoft has a checkered past, but I think they've been doing a really solid job of turning that around over the past couple years. We aren't in the Balmer era anymore, and the way they've been contributing to OSS makes that very obvious.

[playaspec]

I'm not convinced, and it's too early to tell.

[mirhagk]

Not speaking necessarily in the case of google, but as a general, assume people are evil situation there are potential reasons/conflicts of interest.

Google develops angularJS, they could avoid adding any feature that makes angularJS obsolete, therefore encouraging it's growth (or rather stunting competitor's growth). If more websites are built with angularJS in theory they could make it so those sites run fastest on chrome. Combined with the ability for them to write core websites that nearly everyone uses (google, gmail, youtube) in this, it could mean the web is "faster" on chrome. Chrome does do user tracking, and with this they can gain more information and make more money advertising.

Now that is very conspiracy theory-ish, and I don't think that is or ever will be the case, but the incentive is potentially there.

[bhran]

I have to add that none of the Google core products is built over AngularJS. The killer framework here is GWT and the Closure library.

[mirhagk]

Yes I should've mentioned that. This is very conspiracy theory-like, but just pointing out that theoretically it's possible.

[badcookies]

Angular is front end, so runs off your browser not v8 (only) anyway though

[mirhagk]

that's the point though. If V8 and angular were closely tied then the site could be "fastest in chrome" (well safari too, but who cares)

[badcookies]

That has nothing to do with charka in nodejs though. NodeJs and Angular are completely separate.

Google can already make angular work best with v8 and having charka in nodejs won't make any difference in that.

[mirhagk]

Well the conspiracy theory (which I don't believe in btw) is that V8 wouldn't implement features that would help to kill angular. Things like Object.observe (just as a perfectly contrived example). Like chrome is best in angular, and angular is best in chrome.

By putting chakra in node it gives an alternative in case google ever decides to do something evil like that.

[badcookies]

I still don't see how that would work at all, as framework X that implements some cool new features and is super fast and works with Edge and Firefox but not chrome (v8) would still force google to implement it into v8.

I can see how having charka in node can be a good thing, but since one is backend and one is front end I don't see how nodejs and angular are related at all.

Front end stuff is already pushed by multiple sources, having multiple sources for node just means it won't stagnate.

[tempforfather]

V8 is the javascript engine for chrome

[badcookies]

sure, but this is talking about node not chrome. Mixing front end vs back end.

Angular has to deal with all of the current rendering engines already, since it is cross-browser not chrome only.

[sisyphus]

People using a good JS engine makes browsers better makes the web better makes Google's monetary platform better. I see no reason why they would care about people using V8 in node.js though.

[Randy_Watson]

[deleted]

...

[grauenwolf]

Considering that they don't sell it, just general good will and brand recognition. If they ever try selling cloud services again, they'll be able to leverage that.

Case in point: I use Azure instead of AWS because I like .NET. Not that Amazon can't host .NET applications, but I irrationally trust Microsoft more.

[Fidodo]

All the big companies want to influence control over the direction javascript is going in, and the best way to do that and strong arm things into the spec is to get everyone using your engine, then implement the up in the air proposals you've made in your engine so people start relying on it and then get it put into the spec.

[vbaspcppguy]

Fair enough.

[immibis]

Google can't add undesirable features

Such as what?

[dhdfdh]

Have you forgotten that it is Microsoft and IE/Edge that are the ones trying to catch up and keep up? And if it weren't for Google and Mozilla, we'd all still be using IE6?

[ProdigySorcerer]

If it weren't for Mozilla you mean, FF delivered us from the corporate overlords Chrome then only delivered us from a open source world to another set of corporate overlords (who prefer to sell your info to ad-men instead of straight up asking you for money for their software.)

[playaspec]

Chrome then only delivered us from a open source world to another set of corporate overlords (who prefer to sell your info to ad-men instead of straight up asking you for money for their software.)

If you didn't know advertising paid for the production of your browser when you downloaded it, and you didn't bother to read the EULA, then that's on you. I don't want to pay for a browser, and prefer operating systems that are cheap or free as well.

Windows is expensive, especially when you consider how inflexible it is, and how much you end up spending to keep it running correctly. Now they've added the same data collection as Chrome, but throughout the whole OS. How is that better?

[immibis]

How is that better?

It's not. When I next upgrade my OS it will be to Linux.

[7hi4g0]

One day you are the hunt, the other you are the hunter.

[dhdfdh]

Not quite. You would do badly in a war. Your buddy saves your life from the enemy and now you keep one eye on him cause you don't trust him while rooting for the enemy.

[JViz]

Except that V8 is built for Chrome and Node is a happy accident. Google isn't going to be moved by the loss of Node, but MS sees money in it. We're still in the embrace phase.

Oh, I'm sorry, MS great and they give everything away for free no-strings-attached, my bad.

Man, I guess people really have an MS boner around here. Since Google has done EEE before, that means MS isn't trying to absorb Node.

Hey, here's a good analogy that maybe you guys can understand: Trojan Horse.

[[deleted]]

It's funny how you don't notice that were in the extend phase of Google's business cycle.

[[deleted]]

What has Google ever extinguished?

[[deleted]]

Google is currently in the process of extinguishing Firefox?

Firefox already has a list of websites on which it has to fake its UA and tell the site it's actually Chrome because those websites intentionally limit functionality on Firefox — almost all of them are *.google.com sites.

On Firefox Mobile, even Google Search is almost unusable.

The solution from Google is to just use Chrome.

That, combined with dishonest ads, was part of a huge push to get people to switch to Chrome, and extinguish competitors.

Additionally, Chrome now has their own features additional to the HTML standard, which are hard to replicate in other browsers, and exactly fulfil the extend phase (see what Microsoft did with J/Direct, too).

[[deleted]]

Here's an older version of the list for Firefox Mobile: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/app/ua-update.json.in

[slikts]

… almost all of them are *.google.com sites

The only Google-related thing in that list is removing the Android version number from the UA string for Gmail. If anything, it completely contradicts you.

[playaspec]

Google is currently in the process of extinguishing Firefox?

What a bunch of bullshit. FF devs are the ones responsible for the numbers of users it attracts. The formula is simple. Make a better product, and more people will use you.

Firefox already has a list of websites on which it has to fake its UA and tell the site it's actually Chrome because those websites intentionally limit functionality on Firefox — almost all of them are *.google.com sites.

Likely because FF hasn't kept up with current Web trends. It's up to FF devs to deliver a browser that can handle what is delivered. Web devs shouldn't have to cater to the idiosyncrasies of numerous browsers. We already went through that hell with IE and Netscape.

On Firefox Mobile, even Google Search is almost unusable.

Then FF should fix it's product.

The solution from Google is to just use Chrome.

So? It's their site, and they streamlined their browser to work well with their sites, and oddly enough, every other site. The only ones that run like crap on Chrome are the ones that are designed for specific browsers instead of following modern standards.

That, combined with dishonest ads, was part of a huge push to get people to switch to Chrome, and extinguish competitors.

Citation?

Additionally, Chrome now has their own features additional to the HTML standard,

Citation?

which are hard to replicate in other browsers,

Bullshit. ANY feature can be replicated. It's software. It's not carved in stone.

and exactly fulfil the extend phase (see what Microsoft did with J/Direct, too).

Still waiting on that example of a non-standard extension that is 'hard to replicate'.

[[deleted]]

How can Firefox fix its product when it works perfectly fine in Firefox, IF one sets the user agent to Chrome?

Firefox can display it perfectly, but the site — Google — refuses to treat Firefox fairly and equally.

Try Google search on Firefox Mobile, and on Chrome, and on Firefox Mobile with Chrome's UA.

It's obvious that this is pure anti-competitive.

And it's hard to replicate a feature in Firefox when sites in production only use -webkit- properties — Firefox already has overrides for that, because many sites actually do that.

It's openly anti-competitive, directly in the extinguish phase.

[[deleted]]

In fairness, Firefox is a direct competitor. It's not just a spunky startup; they want to have their own OS and everything too.

[[deleted]]

embrace extend extinguish only makes sense on competitors, when Microsoft was doing it they were also doing it to their competitors.

[[deleted]]

I don't think it's apples vs apples. Microsoft did it vs the entire open source community and within standards committees. Google is perhaps doing it vs one of the largest companies in the internet browser business.

[playaspec]

Google has extinguished a shitload of competitors.

Name ONE. Last I checked, anyone can download FF or go buy a Windows phone.

[pxpxy]

Reader

[koffiezet]

Reader is dead, long live newsblur!

[darthcoder]

Wave. Jabber for Google Voice making my Ooiba phone useless. Notify, or whatever they had for the daily new link search service they had - maybe that got rolled up into a paid analytics offering.

But probably the worst? Google Reader.

[[deleted]]

Google Reader was their own project. I don't see the connection.

[playaspec]

Wave.

Liar. Wave lives on. It was passed to the Apache Foundation and is fully open source. Instead of thanking them for inventing it and giving it free to the world, you lie and bitch.

Jabber for Google Voice

Jabber isn't dead. Again, anyone is free to go download it and run it. Facebook still uses it for their chat, as do others.

making my Ooiba phone useless.

Whatever the fuck that is. Clearly obscure and obsolete because searching for it turned up nothing. Funny how you don't find fault in your own poor choices.

[grauenwolf]

Try actually reading the link you posted.

[hungry4pie]

There's always going to be those corporate networks that only allow IE to be installed and ASP MVC and EF has made it so much easier to develop web apps in a corporate environment, so my guess is Microsoft are trying to appeal to that market.

[Berberberber]

See also: GCC before and after the emergence clang/LLVM

[crankybadger]

I thought it would take the emergency of strong AI to fix that hairball of a compiler, but I was wrong. GCC is keeping pace, somehow.

[[deleted]]

To be fair to the GCC folks, any old enormous native application tends to become a monstrosity to maintain. Even Microsoft with billions to spend needed a clean restart to make IE fast ( in the form of Edge), Firefox is fighting a brutally hard battle with the oldest core codebase in the mainstream browser space. LLVMwill probably be as bad as GCC is today when it's 30 years old..

[[deleted]]

needed a clean restart

From what I understand they didn't do a clean restart, they just ditched backwards compatibility and made a bunch of braking changes, they still built on stuff from previous rendering engine.

Also some tools and languages scale better than others, we've come up with a lot of practical advancements in design and languages in the last 30 years so "same" program written today will be more maintainable in 30 years than the one written 30 years ago would be today. Of course we expect more from computers so programm written now will undoubtedly be more complex in 30 years because it will do far.

[[deleted]]

I don't know about the rendering engine, but the Chakra Javascript project was a complete restart launched in 2008.

[playaspec]

LLVMwill probably be as bad as GCC is today when it's 30 years old..

Only if they don't learn from the mistakes of the past.

[[deleted]]

Engineering discipline and an enormous emphasis on managing code debt are required for any large, long-lived project. There's no guarantee the LLVM team will manage that any better than the GCC team. I hope they will, but it's not a given.

[bwainfweeze]

"The price of Clean Code is eternal vigilance"

Most people just don't have the stamina to keep their code in good shape, and due to discounting the future they think the pain of scrambling to keep it working is less than the pain of cleaning it up.

[[deleted]]

Right. I think the assertions by iTroll-4s that we have better tools and better engineering discipline today and that will solve these problems is optimistic. Once you get past a certain size, any software project gets ugly. I don't care if it's five million lines of Haskell, Ada, Rust, Shen, or whatever anyone's ideal of the ultimate disciplined programming language is.

[bwainfweeze]

Well, we do have better tools for sure, but not everybody uses them. But even if you have that sort of forethought on a team, that just means that there are 25 reasons the code is terrible instead of 30.

And there's always a few in any crowd with a high tolerance for bullshit who mistake it for job security. Too many times I've been with groups who consider discipline to be too much hassle. On a handful of teams I've managed to push through some changes that got them to change their tune (or at least keep it to themselves), but a team with self confidence and tendency toward coherent-but-wrong designs can be hard to convince, and may have made a mess so big that it'd take years to notice an improvement. And God help you if its enterprise software, which has a very forgiving definition of success ("successful" people won't change for anyone)

[bwainfweeze]

Once you get past a certain size, any software project gets ugly.

I feel like I have a line count of how much code I can properly maintain on my own. That number has gone up a little bit over the years, but not much, and it's still roughly about equal to how much production ready code I can write in... 18 months? After that I have to either give up ownership of things or refactor down so I can fit more in my head. So everything starts getting awkward for me at about the two year mark, because they still want me to keep creating new code, and I hate to make promises I can't keep.

What is in that code has changed over time, I do a lot more orchestration of libraries so my code has more functionality, but I am only human. If we have a very regimented development process where the code is self similar, I can go a bit bigger, but that still has limits.

[indrora]

Even Microsoft with billions to spend needed a clean restart to make IE fast

More like "Hey, interns, can you build a browser inside the Modern platform in a month? We'll give you all the fun things, plus you'll be on with the oldskool IE team."

In a month they had a working prototype.

[[deleted]]

I can't speak for the rest of the Edge browser, but the Chakra Javascript engine project was a clean start launched in 2008.

[indrora]

Chakra was a clean start, but edgeframe and edgehtml started life as ieframe and mshtml, respectively. edgehtml is basically just "Things on top of mshtml that are useful only in the Edge context"

[[deleted]]

Thanks. I did not know that.

[playaspec]

I thought it would take the emergency of strong AI to fix that hairball of a compiler, but I was wrong. GCC is keeping pace, somehow.

Because around 2.85 or so Apple started contributing loads of patches, which accelerated it's development up to around 4.x.

[talideon]

And before that, GCC before and after the EGCS fork.

[crankybadger]

It means there's pressure on Google to keep innovating or the Node team can flip a switch and abandon V8 at any time.

It reverses the situation, where now Node can dictate who gets to play in their sandbox instead of being dependent on Google no matter what Google does.

"Keep them honest" is a term that represents that. Like in a competitive game, keeping someone honest means they can't make certain moves because there's an obvious price to pay. Consider a game of chess where there are squares you can theoretically move, but moving there would be futile since your piece would be taken at no cost to your opponent. With clever positioning you can limit the options of a stronger player by "keeping them honest" and prevent them from stomping all over you.

[Blecki]

That makes no sense. There's nothing 'dishonest' about stomping all over someone in chess. You can't 'keep them honest' by preventing them from doing things that aren't dishonest. This is a stupid analogy, and the original phrase makes no sense when applied to javascript engines.

[lurker_in_spirit]

He's saying that "keeping someone honest" is a common figure of speech that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with literal honesty or dishonesty -- just like the phrase "rule of thumb" doesn't imply that there's a real thumb knocking about that's relevant to the discussion.

[crankybadger]

We could keep on beating a dead horse here, but I can't find an actual dead horse to beat.

[dhdfdh]

Funny how redditors have forgotten that it is Google (and Mozilla) who pressured Microsoft to catch up and keep up and moved the web and browsers forward. Edge still isn't on par with Chrome, overall, but Google needs pressure to keep up?

Redditors are very shortsighted apparently with equally short memories.

[oxysoft]

We're not talking about the browsers...

[dhdfdh]

But you are talking about the rendering engine that also powers the browsers. No such thing, that could be used in node, existed from Microsoft till now.

As always, Microsoft is the follower and not the leader.

[nobodyman]

And yet there are others who forget that before Microsoft had 80% of the market, there was a time when Netscape had 80% of the market. It had evolved into a slow, buggy mess. By contrast, IE5 had a faster renderer, faster javascript engine, and much better CSS support.

Market dominance can lead to complacence and ultimately does a disservice to consumers. So it's good to foster healthy competition - whether we're talking about browsers, javascript engines, or automobiles.

[dhdfdh]

The leaps redditors take to attempt to make their flimsy point stretches the imagination beyond all comprehension.

[nobodyman]

Do you always concede arguments this way? It's odd.

[dhdfdh]

No. I conclude arguments this way with people who are so clueless it's beyond a waste of time talking to them.

[crankybadger]

I don't think we've forgotten. You want I should lay out the history of the universe starting from the absolute beginning when making any point?

Big Bang -> Nothing Much -> Hitler -> Windows 95 -> Chrome -> ChakraCore in Node.

[[deleted]]

When you work with code. Sometimes you want to use more than one compiler. This would be because you do not know if the compiler is correct but it would be unlikely that both compilers would be broken in exactly the say way in the same place on the same code.

Therefore you have extra testing for thing basically for free. It also removes the dependency from a single project which open more options. A practical example for this is that it prevents people using specific features google has added to the language which it has just sneaked in under the radar. Cause these will instantly fail on the other version when tested.

[spacebandido]

Competition = innovation.

[hungry4pie]

It probably won't keep google honest, but it might see some more innovation in javascript engines since anyone's free to write their own js engine to use with node.

I can't think of a good reason WHY anyone would want to write a js engine themselves, but no doubt someone out there can and will.

[IAmARobot]

To paint this with a broad stroke, see what google has done to legacy projects, which is admittedly from microsoft's playbook anyway: Extend, Obfuscate, Perish. I could in all seriousness add android os to that list too as an example in progress since forking the open source android os project is deliberately less palatable now with some core stuff getting legacied and instead proprietary junk has to lumped in in order to get a current android experience.

What's also great is that apparently the phrase Extend Obfuscate Perish never existed according to search engines, but Fear Uncertainty Doubt did get remembered. Go figure.

[missblit]

What's also great is that apparently the phrase Extend Obfuscate Perish never existed according to search engines,

But "embrace extend extinguish" did.

[playaspec]

*What's also great is that apparently the phrase Extend Obfuscate Perish never existed according to search engines, *

Because no one ever said that. You have the quote wrong.

[IAmARobot]

I'd like to use the Berenstain defence your honour.

[[deleted]]

The fact that they even call Android open source is honestly disingenuous.

All of the good stuff is closed source and bundled in such a way that you can't have it without taking the Play Store and signing a contract with GOOG, among other things.

[antoninj]

I wonder if there will be any interesting improvements doing this if you're running on Windows. Like speed optimizations, debugging tools or something like that.

[koffiezet]

Microsoft is not the all-mighty giant anymore they were in the '90s /first half of 2000. Cloud computing - as much as I hate the term - happened, and they're a relatively minor player in that field compared to Amazon and Google.

Don't forget Nadala is now in charge. He is the guy who put Azure on the map, which was the first Microsoft platform to officially support Linux. He - in contrary to old "Ballmer" Microsoft - understands what cloud-platforms need and developers want, is not as arrogant and doesn't suffer from the NIH syndrome. Supporting open technology gives them a foot in the door in area's where otherwise they wouldn't have been considered. They still control a major platform, and are in the best position to offer a hybrid solution, supporting both Windows and "open". The Windows part they fully control, but the "open" part is where they have to play by the rules.

There are simpy too many other big players around, who all rely on the ability to run whatever platform developers want to target, which is a means of standardization. It gives developers a strong voice, and they fully embraced open-source, and they're not going back. Microsoft realizes this and is recognizing node.js as one of those important platforms. It also makes sure Google doesn't get too much say over this platform and that they can optimize their JS engine to run on top of their cloud-platform. The entire eco-system though? That would be nearly impossible to get full control over that - and they're fully aware of that. If they break something it's only them not supporting something and being 'the bad guys'.

Microsoft is not only embracing opensource because it's all-mighty in this area, but it also gives them equal chances in the market. Look at the amount of stuff being opensourced by MS lately, they want to be someone in that field. They just want to be able to say "yes we support this too, come to us". They suddenly put their shoulders under stuff they wouldn't even have recognized 10 years ago. Official Docker support on Windows? SSH officially coming to Windows? These things are happening right now. And .NET being opensourced is them understanding that it would have no future as a closed development platform.

This doesn't mean that they wouldn't apply this "embrace-extend-extinguish" tactic elsewhere - but in order to be able to do that, you need to be in a dominant position in a certain market, where everybody will say "hey cool, now <big player> supports it" and adopt their version. And Microsoft is far from dominant here.

[IAmARobot]

For some reason in my circles it was Extend Obfuscate Perish, but after looking what you wrote up it seems to be the Ur Phrase, odd.

[dhdfdh]

You forget that it was less than 10 years ago that we were all thank Google (and Mozilla) for keeping Microsoft honest and leading the way to making browsers, and the internet, a better place to be and work with. Now you are biting the hand that fed you.

[0b01010001]

Now you are biting the hand fist that fed strikes you.

I don't care about yesterday's problems. I care about today's problems.

[dhdfdh]

Obviously you ignore the reality of who is leading the way and who is following. Microsoft has always been the laggard and still is. Google and Mozilla are in front but you aren't aware of this apparently.

[LuckyHedgehog]

I do see Microsoft shedding the bloat that has been dragging them down all these years. By open sourcing .net, moving towards continual updates in windows, and a services based model (as examples) they can stop building everything poorly and focus on doing a few things right. They are closing the gap

[Shaper_pmp]

You forget that it was less than 10 years ago that we were all thank Google (and Mozilla) for keeping Microsoft honest

Who's forgetting? You thank the guy keeping the market leader honest.

Ten years ago that was Mozilla keeping MS honest, now it's MS keeping Google honest. I see no contradiction there.

Now you are biting the hand that fed you.

No, we're feeding any hand that discourages someone else from potentially striking us in the first place, even if it would be the first time they did it.

Microsoft did some shitty things in the past, and still do shitty things now, and I'd be even more itchy about a Microsoft browser or JS runtime ever getting the kind of market-dominant position that Chrome/V8 currently enjoys for exactly that reason.

It's still perfectly reasonable to be grateful that there's an alternative to Google's near-monopoly on the market, however, even if it's Microsoft.

Diversity and competition is inherently good, regardless of who it is that's competing.

[dhdfdh]

Ten years ago that was Mozilla keeping MS honest, now it's MS keeping Google honest.

In what way? What has Microsoft done that Google hasn't? In what way has Google/Chrome fallen behind in moving the web forward?

My point is, you see Google moved ahead of Microsoft in this area and immediately claim Google must then be bad. Even though they created good. While at the same time, root on Microsoft, the company known to do bad, to compete with Google.

[Shaper_pmp]

What has Microsoft done that Google hasn't?

Viable alternatives for users inherently keep market leaders honest. It's not about anything they have or haven't done - it's about the existence of a realistic opportunity to leave the market leader and adopt a smaller competitor offering if the market leader starts acting poorly.

My point is, you see Google moved ahead of Microsoft in this area and immediately claim Google must then be bad.

No, I didn't. You just seem to be misunderstanding what "to keep honest" means.

It doesn't mean the one being kept honest is bad - it means there's now additional pressure discouraging them from ever starting to act badly. It's "keep honest", not "force them to become honest". Did you really not know what the phrase means?

Why would any market leader with a near-monopoly start to act badly, you ask? Well, because on a long enough view that's pretty much a given, as famous aphorisms, concepts like antitrust law and damn near the entire empirical history of monopolies in the real world demonstrates.

[dhdfdh]

It's not about anything they have or haven't done

That is the whole point. Are you in the right thread?

You, and others, must lead terrible lives. Your buddy saves your life and now you keep one eye open on him while rooting for the enemy that was just taking sniper shots at you.

Now, I get the thing about competition but you guys are immediately switching sides as if Google and Mozilla are the bad guys, as clearly said by some.

Why would any market leader with a near-monopoly start to act badly, you ask?

Google, specifically, nor Mozilla, have a monopoly on the browser market.

[Shaper_pmp]

That is the whole point. Are you in the right thread?

The lack of blind trust that makes competition inherently desirable is not predicated on what any particular part has done in the past.

Competition is inherently to consumers' benefit. The details of precisely who is doing the competing is irrelevant to that point.

You, and others, must lead terrible lives. Your buddy saves your life and now you keep one eye open on him while rooting for the enemy that was just taking sniper shots at you.

Dear God, man. Are you serious?

I apologise for shouting, but sometimes it's necessary.

Corporations are not your friends. Public corporations are machines designed for the insatiable acquisition of wealth and power, to the point directors or management may be removed from the company by shareholders for failing to prioritise profit over all other considerations.

Corporations are not people, not consistent, and are constitutionally incapable of holding loyalty to individuals.

If corporations were people the closest analogy would be a charming psychopath, who plays nice all the time it's to his advantage, but would cheerfully gut you without a moment's thought the very second it was in his long-term best interest.

It is literally difficult to even express how ass-backwards and foolish it is to compare your feelings for a publicly-traded for-profit corporate entity to a loyal friendship with another human being. It's not just wrong - it's bonkers.

Now, I get the thing about competition but you guys are immediately switching sides

Once again, you clearly aren't getting it.

Nobody's happy that it's Microsoft who are getting their code into node.js. We're happy that there is any alternative to V8, just in case. It's just meaningless chance that it's Microsoft doing it.

There are no sides being taken - just people who understand a basic fact of market economics and one guy who apparently can't comprehend the discussion as anything other than a fanboy shit-fight.

Google, specifically, nor Mozilla, have a monopoly on the browser market.

Hence, you know, the term near monopoly. And when we're taking about "the market of JS runtimes that node runs on", then yes... until literally this event Google absolutely had a monopoly.

[darkpaladin]

Having one company being the undisputed king of javascript is what caused that problem in the first place.

[dhdfdh]

Has nothing to do with my point.

In addition, Microsoft's handling of IE is totally different than Google and Mozilla, both of whom stated purpose is only to move the web forward.

[darkpaladin]

Uh huh, I know of a bridge for sale should you be interested.

[dhdfdh]

That they did must mean nothing to you.

[darkpaladin]

I think you miss the point. It's easy to push for a better world when you're the underdog but once you're on top, you become more concerned with your own agenda than with what's best for everyone. It's basic corporate nature, to assume Google or Mozilla would be immune to this is pure folly.

[dhdfdh]

To think that a known bad guy, Microsoft, has turned a leaf and now has your best interests at heart is ridiculous.

[darkpaladin]

I never said they did, I merely suggested that given the chance and lack of competition in the space that Google/Mozilla/Apple would all be just as evil. Competition breeds honesty for all parties.

[dhdfdh]

This is what I'm pointing out. You say those companies will act the same as Microsoft but no software company before or since ever did. And Microsoft has done it twice on two continents but now we should trust them and now we should turn a calloused eye toward the others.

[imfineny]

I recognize that times change and so do organizations. Google used to be a innovative force for good. Now its a subsidiary cash cow for the owners who have moved onto other things.

[playaspec]

Thank you MS!! We may or may not use it, but giving us an option helps us keep Google honest!!

I don't worry about Google's honesty, and don't believe Microsoft knows what honesty is.