Opera反击：宣布下一代JavaScript引擎

One of the most important fronts in the fight for web browser supremacy is the battle for JavaScript engine speed. The game of one-upmanship has been going on for awhile now, and it’s not easy to stay on top of who has the current fastest JavaScript engine — especially since different benchmarks often yield vastly different results. However whether the current fastest engine is Google’s V8, Mozilla’s TraceMonkey, Apple’s SquirrelFish, Microsoft’s JScript, or Opera’s Futhark the battle is an important one.

争夺网络浏览器霸主地位最重要的战线之一就是争夺JavaScript引擎速度。 一键式游戏已经进行了一段时间，要掌握谁拥有当前最快JavaScript引擎并不容易，尤其是因为不同的基准测试通常会产生截然不同的结果。 但是，无论当前最快的引擎是Google的V8，Mozilla的TraceMonkey，苹果的SquirrelFish，微软的JScript还是Opera的Futhark，这场战斗都是重要的。

The reason has to do with the slow transition to cloud-based web applications. We reported last month that over half the world’s developers will be working on software as a service projects in 2009, so the trend is definitely moving in that direction. In order to simulate a more “desktop-like” user experience, many web applications utilize a lot of JavaScript. So the speed at which the browser can render JavaScript (or ECMAScript) is becoming more and more important.

原因与缓慢过渡到基于云的Web应用程序有关。 我们上个月曾报道说，2009年全球将有一半以上的开发人员将从事软件即服务项目，因此趋势肯定正在朝这个方向发展。 为了模拟更“类似于桌面”的用户体验，许多Web应用程序都使用了大量JavaScript。 因此，浏览器呈现JavaScript(或ECMAScript)的速度变得越来越重要。

In September, when Google first released Chrome, jQuery creator John Resig put up a good rundown of JavaScript engine performance on his blog. Though his benchmarking is probably outdated by now, one theme was clear then: Opera’s Futhark engine ran near the bottom of the pack, with Internet Explorer’s JScript engine as company.

九月份，当Google首次发布Chrome时，jQuery的创建者John Resig在他的博客中介绍了JavaScript引擎的性能 。 尽管他的基准测试现在可能已经过时了，但是当时有一个明确的主题：Opera的Futhark引擎几乎排在最后，Internet Explorer的JScript引擎作为公司。

This week Opera announced their next generation JavaScript and ECMAScript engine, called Carakan. According to Opera, when they first released Futhark, it was the fastest ECMAScript engine on the market. That is clearly no longer the case, and Opera is now intending to raise the bar again.

Opera在本周宣布了他们的下一代JavaScript和ECMAScript引擎，称为Carakan 。 据Opera称，当他们首次发布Futhark时，它是市场上最快的ECMAScript引擎。 显然不再如此，Opera现在打算再次提高标准。

“The Web is a changing environment however, and tomorrow’s advanced web applications will require faster ECMAScript execution, so we have now taken on the challenge to once again develop the fastest ECMAScript engine on the market,” says Opera core team member Jens Lindström.

Opera核心团队成员JensLindström说：“然而，Web是一个不断变化的环境，明天的高级Web应用程序将需要更快的ECMAScript执行，因此，我们现在面临着再次开发市场上最快的ECMAScript引擎的挑战。”

Carakan makes improvements in three areas. First, a switch to a register-based bytecode instruction set rather than a stack-based one, which Lindström says speeds things up because “fewer instructions need to be executed, and less data needs to be copied.” Second, Carakan will include native code generation for some ECMAScript programs and functions. Finally, the new engine will do automatic object classification.

Carakan在三个方面进行了改进。 首先，切换到基于寄存器的字节码指令集，而不是基于堆栈的指令集，Lindström说，这样做可以加快速度，因为“需要执行的指令更少，需要复制的数据更少。” 其次，Carakan将包括一些ECMAScript程序和功能的本机代码生成。 最后，新引擎将执行自动对象分类。

Though Opera isn’t ready to release any benchmarks showing Carakan’s performance against the competition, Lindström says that without any generated native code, Carakan is about two and a half times faster than the current engine in the Opera 10 Alpha according to the SunSpider benchmark. The native code generation isn’t ready for broad benchmarking, but in some individual tests, it is between 5 and 50 times faster. Not too shabby.

尽管Opera还没有准备发布任何基准来显示Carakan的性能，但Lindström表示，根据SunSpider基准，Carakan没有任何生成的本机代码，比Opera 10 Alpha中的当前引擎快大约两倍半。 本机代码生成尚未准备好进行广泛的基准测试，但是在某些单独的测试中，它的速度提高了5到50倍。 不是太寒酸。

Of course, one also has to wonder if it is too little, too late for Opera. According to Net Applications, Opera only has 0.71% of the browser market — a number that has more or less stayed flat over the past year. And while Opera has seen virtually zero growth, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have each experienced significant growth (IE has lost considerable share points, as we recently noted). Then again, Opera’s numbers are far higher on mobile devices, where speedy JavaScript performance might be even more important.

当然，还必须怀疑它是否太少，对于Opera来说为时已晚。 根据Net Applications的统计 ，Opera仅占浏览器市场的0.71％，在过去的一年中，这个数字或多或少保持稳定。 尽管Opera几乎实现了零增长，但Firefox，Safari和Chrome都实现了显着增长(正如我们最近指出的那样 ，IE失去了相当大的份额)。 再说一次，Opera的数量在移动设备上要高得多，在这些设备上，快速JavaScript性能可能更为重要。

翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/opera-fights-back-announces-next-gen-javascript-engine/