Asm.js
| Designed by | Mozilla |
|---|---|
| First appeared | 21 March 2013 |
| OS | Platform independent |
| Website | asmjs |
| Influenced by | |
| JavaScript | |
asm.js is an intermediate programming language designed to allow computer software written in languages such as C to be run as web applications while maintaining performance characteristics considerably better than standard JavaScript, the typical language used for such applications.
asm.js consists of a strict subset of JavaScript, into which code written in statically-typed languages with manual memory management (such as C) is translated by a source-to-source compiler such as Emscripten (based on LLVM). Performance is improved by limiting language features to those amenable to ahead-of-time optimization and other performance improvements.
Mozilla Firefox was the first web browser to implement asm.js-specific optimizations, starting with Firefox 22.
asm.js consists of a strict subset of the JavaScript language. It enables significant performance improvements for web applications that are written in statically-typed languages with manual memory management (such as C) and then translated to JavaScript by a source-to-source compiler. Asm.js does not aim to improve the performance of hand-written JavaScript code, nor does it enable anything other than enhanced performance.
It is intended to have performance characteristics closer to that of native code than standard JavaScript by limiting language features to those amenable to ahead-of-time optimization and other performance improvements. By using a subset of JavaScript, asm.js is largely supported by all major web browsers, unlike alternative approaches such as WebAssembly or Google Native Client.
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