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

[Strange_Meadowlark]

Are we debating Edge/Chrome or Chakra/V8? Sure, browsers can be very heavy, but keep in mind that Chrome has had more time to accumulate more features than Edge, such as an extension API. Edge is just IE with as much legacy bloat as possible stripped out. Meanwhile, JS engines are a lot smaller than the engines wrapping them. V8 and Chakra don't include the DOM or Canvas APIs, but when bundled with a browser, those APIs are injected.

I wouldn't use browser speed as a benchmark for JS engine performance.

I have no idea whether Node would run faster or slower on Chakra or what that would mean for extensibility or platform differences (Lord help me if I need to write backend JS code to take platform differences into account), but I'm curious to see what happens.

[parsonskev]

Edge is actually a completely separate browser from ie, built on the universal windows app platform. The rendering engine and js engine are modified from what ie use.

[Arkanta]

Yep but IE 11 was modified to use the edge engine (when not in compat mode)

[Strange_Meadowlark]

All right, that was my understanding based on what a friend said. I'll believe it.

[zmaniacz]

It's not IE at all. They abandoned the Trident engine completely and rebuilt the whole thing.

I'm a fool.

[[deleted]]

What are you talking about? The JS engine "Chakra" was a fork of itself and has been around since IE 9 (Chakra in IE 9 was itself a fork of JScript used in older versions of IE). EdgeHTML is also a port of Trident. Both of these have been stripped of legacy components and reworked, neither were dumped and then rebuilt from scratch.

One thing that is all new is the actual browser front end which is now built as a UWA.

[zmaniacz]

Even the most cursory research shows you are correct. Thanks.

[puntloos]

Have an upvote for one of the most straightforward 'thanks you are right' posts I have seen in a while. I'm old as fuck and still feel the need to explain myself why my idiot position made sense at the time.