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42 Comments
- jopsen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16As I read it... Adobe wants to help Mozilla in their implementation of ECMAScript Edition 4 (ES4)... Which is a GOOD thing... It seams like their are trying to cooperate in the creation of a joint scripting engine for Firefox and Flash player... Not bad at all...
Sure Flash is still closed source, but a nice scripting engine, with good performance for Firefox is a nice feature... - mikepotter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Frank Hecker from the Mozilla Foundation has a good commentary on what this means for developers:
http://www.hecker.org/mozilla/adobe-mozilla-and-tamarin
Mike - aconbere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Since they're implementing EMCAscript, a standard on which Javascript is based I honestly can't quite figure out what the hell you're freaking out about. (Actionscript like Javascript and Jscript are all based on EMCAScript)
- CaffeineAddict, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13@noouch
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/faq.html
(quote)
Are JavaScript and ActionScript the same?
ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same ECMA-262, 3rd edition language standard, but the libraries supporting ActionScript and JavaScript are different.
For example, JavaScript is generally used within a browser and its Document Object Model (DOM) is browser window-, document-, and form-centric, while also supporting XML, event handling and Ajax. ActionScript executes within the Adobe Flash Player and its DOM is media centric, with support for animations, audio, text, and event handling.
In short, the languages are the same but have some unique extensions and supporting libraries. This contribution does not affect the DOM APIs in either Firefox or Adobe Flash Player.
(/quote)
Hopefully that answers your question - konrad8ha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9This is HUGE! I'm going to get frickin' rich, I'm an Actionscript Pro! I knew Adobe buying out Macromedia would turn out nicely. Now Flash and related products are never going to die!
Sure, a full open-source replacement for Flash would've been nice, but you didn't really think that was ever going to happen, did you? - avolant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7actually, flash is a very useful platform for creating user interface with logical structures as well, leaving it open for a wide variety of 'skill based' educational applications (my personal experience with it...). it is an object oriented environment, allowing great extendability to complicated but user-accessable applications. additionally, with its persistence in a web environment, it has the capability of interacting with an xml server to allow a 'push' to users as new information is available, rather than clients constantly pulling from the server, asking 'is there anything new now?'
admittedly the platform itself may leave something to be desired, but used correctly (or in a controlled display scenario), i have found flash has quite a lot to offer. - petercooper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6And if anyone wants to play with the source but isn't familiar with Mozilla's CVS structure:
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co mozilla/js/tamarin - badnewsblair, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"The only thing in Flash that is really useful is the video codec"
That is the most ridiculous comment I've ever read.
I can only hope you aren't a "professional" web developer. - vbsurfer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Theres so much you can do with AS 3.0 and the flash environment for web. This is great news for the future of flash development. I am a huge fan and always thought flash would be a bigger player in web development, but with this kind of deal we can expect a wider angel on getting a higher accessibility range in the future.
Good links cying, I also found an easier read FAQ for people intrested:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/faq.html#access - kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Actionscript is based on ECMAscript as is Javascript, so you can basically read this as Adobe giving Mozilla a really good Javascript scripting engine.
- 83457, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8RTFA IMO
- invader, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5thanks CaffeineAddict
that helped clear it up a little better for me - cying, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I poked around the source code, here are some more technical details:
http://www.satine.org/archives/2006/11/06/inside-tamarin-adobes-open-source-flash-vm/
And the Adobe guys have some stuff to say in their blogs:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2006/11/tamarin_project.cfm - petercooper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Only a few people above have RTFA and seem to understand it (given all the questions about Flash and graphics). I just want to clear it up a little bit without hopefully adding too many inaccuracies myself.
Tamarin is not an open source Flash player or Flash compiler. It's a virtual machine and JIT compiler for the fourth edition of ECMAScript (a language specification that serves as a foundation for JavaScript, ActionScript, and a few other languages).
Adobe have contributed code to Tamarin, effectively open sourcing their JIT and VM technology for ActionScript.. but since ActionScript is in the same family as, say, JavaScript, Adobe hopes their previously proprietary technologies will help the development of JavaScript JIT and VM technologies.
So.. this isn't the tool you want if you want to hack around with Flash or graphics, that'd be Flash itself or the Flex 2 SDK (which contains a free ActionScript -> SWF compiler). - crashie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Flash without graphics and sound maybe. This is just the scripting engine.
You should check out Gnash however. I think it works on PPC and it's open source. http://gnu.org/software/gnash/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I think Adobe needs to do something as SVG becomes more prominent.
- holiday, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Get ready for the future!
- stmiller, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6"The current CVS version doesn’t compile cleanly out of the box on my PowerPC Mac, but I’m sure in a few days, once people realize how big of a deal this is, the project will get whipped into shape quickly."
Whoa so we might have flash on PPC Linux? Word! - tmahmood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Is Flash Player going to be open sourced too?
- mcprogrammer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@centinall
They will still be using Spidermonkey as the front-end (parser, compiler), with tamarin as the virtual machine. Eventually, they want to replace spidermonkey with a javascript compiler. - deviateX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ kevincannon
FYI - ActionScript is a mutation of original Mozilla spidermonkey code modified by a few programmers toiling away in closed dark shadowy places.
Flash 8 Documentation: "The JavaScript interpreter in Flash is the Mozilla SpiderMonkey engine, version 1.5, which is available on the web at www.mozilla.org/js/spidermonkey"
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00004335.html - ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I don't know what the hell you're talking about. AS2 was great, and AS3 is even better. Any language problems you have can be easily overcome. Calling AS a bad language just shows how little you know about it.
- kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3No, this is just the scripting engine of it.
The Flash Player is not likely to be released because the open source model currently doesn't lend itself to creating a single consistant experience accross platforms.
It's much to easy for projects to become branched off and splintered. Just look at the IceWeasel debacle for example. - multimed, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@deviateX
That's already dated. With the Flash Player 9 (which uses ActionScript 3, not yet available with the Flash IDE which is still at version 8) they rebuilt the virtual machine (as you noted starting from Spidermonkey) and that purportedly have resulted in major speed improvements. After taking & using the open source Spidermonkey, they're turning around and giving their improvements to be incorporated back in.
Rather than ripping them, they should be commended - this is the way things are supposed to work. Commercial company takes from OS, pays developers to make improvements, then gives their changes back to the project. Obviously it isn't out of the goodness of their hearts, but it's a win-win because sharing the EMCAScript VM between Mozilla & Flash makes sense. Even for people who don't use flash or the flash player, if the performance claims are true (and we'll have to wait & see there) the UI and Extensions in Mozilla should be faster. - kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Dan thanks for the reply.
I think you've pointed to some very good examples of consistant experiences and they're "good enough" for most users. There are inconsistancies, and we're used to them. Flash however provides an unusually high level of consistancy across platforms and versions that's just not seen elsewhere.
Open Source can provide good models, but you end up with different Linux distros tweaking software to get it to run on certain hardware etc... so you get these different version causing all sorts of trouble for developers.
I'll revise my orginal statement though, you've made a good point. Maybe, if there was strong enough leadership of an open source project they could accurately control releases to ensure the same level of consistancy as the current Flash plugin, but I'm not sure what benefit that would really bring to the Flash platform overall. - mdowney, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@deviatX
I think you've confused the Flash Player's VM with the JavaScript engine in the Flash authoring tool. The reference to Flash using the SpiderMonkey engine that you pointed out is referring to the Flash authoring tool's JavaScript engine, which is used to power it's extensibility API (referred to as the JSAPI, or JSFL).
Mike Downey | Flash Product Manager | Adobe Systems - inforhix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@multimed
You are so far off, it's embarrassing. The Flash Player does not use SpiderMonkey. The Flash _authoring_ tool does to support script-ability of the application. The Flash Player has an ancient unrelated AVM1 engine to support ActionScript1&2 and the AVM2/Tamarin engine which was contributed to Mozilla and represents ActionScript3/ECMAScript4/JavaScript2 support. It was build from scratch and is the only VM currently close to full ECMAScript 4 compliance.
@deviateX
You are also clueless, RTFA and RTFS (read the f*** source, no excuses anymore since it is open source). Tamarin is not a derivative of SpiderMoney, they have NOTHING in common right now. - centinall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Which engine did Mozilla use before? Wasn't it Rhino? Anyway, does this mean that Mozilla will abandon whatever engine they were using before?
Also, while it will expand upon what the current Mozilla engine can do, does this mean yet more headaches for people writing webpages for all browsers? Or can we expect similar contributions to IE, Opera, Webkit, KHTML, etc...? - centinall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Great link thanks!
As he points out, this doesn't just mean an expected boost in webpage performance, but also within XUL applications in general, since they are heavily DOM based. Perhaps this will begin to satisfy those who accuse XUL apps of being slow and memory hungry. - dilibau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i agree with JQP...partially...let's hope this new policy adopted by adobe will eventually create a much sharper competition...
- danboarder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@kevincannon -- I disagree. A lot of open source projects are consistent across platforms -- Firefox, Open Office, VLC player, etc etc.
Sure, open source projects can branch (Iceweasel or other examples)... However, branched projects do not retain the original branding or name, so that is somewhat irrelevant. As long as people get the official builds from the original project, they can expect a consistent experience with open source. - russryba, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I'm not a pro, but I've been using flash for the past 6 months or so. I noticed that the ActionScript library said it was originally part of Mozilla. So it's almost like they're just turning in their changes. Sorry I don't remember where I saw this exactly, but it's somewhere in the Flash 8en folders I believe.
- noouch, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5...this doesn't cover the graphics rendering part of flash though, does it?
- polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2I am a designer. I like flash for buttons, animations, and the likes. I had a hard time importing data into flash. I hope AS 3.0 opens up flash to other languages. I am not a great programmer, but I can normally get enough things done with php. I just had a really bad experience with the data side of things.......
- JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0The majority of people are blissfully unaware of just how far MS is ahead in this area.
Before you digg me down as just another MS shill, here's a clue: XBAP - Soulhuntre, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Sounds like WPF is scaring them to death.
- darkixion, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Tamarin is the name of my main harddrive at home. The others are Pangolin and Okapi.
- kalmi, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1ActionScript is for flash, isn't it?
So I can hardly understand how it will help Firefox/Mozilla.
Maybe ActionScript's garbage collector could be used in Firefox nicely.
But I can't see ActionScript could do anything to the DOM, or to anything else not in flash... - blackhalobender, on 10/12/2007, -11/+283457 there is no FA to R. It's a press release. It's garbage.
You could have said RTFPR. - Spatulas, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2Having used Actionscript, and seen the language at it's worst, I hope that this will bring the language out of the dark ages, so no one will ever have to deal with the undocumented problems (solvable only by switching to older versions of Actionscript in some cases) I ran into while trying to work with it.
- warmcat, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2The only thing in Flash that is really useful is the video codec, which is proprietary and probably patented as many ways as they could think.
Looks like Mozilla get thrown a new scripting langauge. Well GNU's Free flash library Gnash
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
will benefit from that hopefully, but unless the video codec is coming across it leaves people wanting simple web video forced to install the Adobe binary blob. - mliving, on 10/12/2007, -33/+5So... will you still need to have Adobe's CLOSED SOURCE FLASH PLAYER installed to enjoy this wonderful bounty from Adobe?
Sounds like Adobe is trying to get more of "open source-e" flavour to the HUGELY PROPRIETARY products in order to get a broader adoption in apps that are currently open source and free of proprietary bricks.
This is like Microsoft "open sourcing" Word's Macro language. Whoppee!
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