
JavaScript Performance in Windows 10 Technical Preview - Flenser
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/10/09/announcing-key-advances-to-javascript-performance-in-windows-10-technical-preview.aspx
======
simonsarris
I have to hand it to IE these days, their performance boasts aren't just lip
service. They are definitely outpacing Chrome and FF on canvas performance.

Chrome used to dither between best and second best in performance in the last
4 years, but for some time now IE10 + 11 have been the fastest browsers at
rendering 2D Canvas paths/primitives/images by a huge margin.

I develop a canvas-based library and have a series of tests[1] that also serve
as a (somewhat practical than usual) benchmark for how browsers compare when
using canvas. Here's how long it takes to complete the tests on the big three:

    
    
        FF nightly: 17.713 seconds
        Chrome dev: 13.123 seconds
             IE 11:  7.83 seconds
    
    

Chrome had an edge when I started out with canvas stuff, now IE is almost
_twice as fast_ as Chrome.

[1] you can run the tests yourself here:
[http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html](http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html)
but remember that its only meaningful if you compare results on the same
machine.

~~~
cromwellian
It's easy to do this when you only need to address a single platform. Most of
that overhead is probably bound to graphics layer overhead. Microsoft tightly
couples to DirectX. Chrome has to sit on top of SKIA to support
Win/Linux/OSX/Android.

I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind to
OSX.

~~~
masklinn
> I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind
> to OSX.

On my machine (old MBP, 10.9.5)

Firefox 33: 35.2s

Safari 7.1: 18.57s

Chrome 34[0]: 28.6s

[0] yes I know it's not up to date

~~~
sitharus
on my 2012 rMBP running 10.10:

Firefox 33: 33.255

Safari 8.0: 16.454

Chrome 38: 22.048

I should install Windows 10 tech preview underbootcamp and see how that goes.

------
Aldo_MX
I'm trying to use IE11, but the #1 issue I find are document modes.

I often find sites which set the wrong document mode (ex. IE9), and the site
behaves broken in comparison with the IE11 document mode. (Basically people
taking for granted that every IE is a faulty browser, and giving up
completely).

Plus, having zero ability to tell IE: "Fuck the Internet, I want to use the
newest document mode for everything!!!" is a really negative misfeature.

If anyone from the IE team reads this: Please, add a system policy to force a
document mode unless compatibility mode is enabled.

~~~
dmethvin
It's a question of who gets the last word, though. Originally I thought that
web devs should have the last word about IE document mode, because darn it,
they own their site. After seeing so many sites that seem to be unmaintained
(or maintained by uninformed devs) I am also leaning towards the user having
the ultimate say.

~~~
Aldo_MX
I personally think that the configuration set by web developers should be
respected by default, but the same way there is a "Compatibility Mode" that
enforces a legacy document mode, there should be something that enforces the
most recent document mode.

------
higherpurpose
I'm curious about what kind of security stuff IE12 supports. Does it support
new curves like Curve25519? HSTS? In many cases, even if Chrome and Firefox
are more pro-active about modern crypto, IE ends up holding them back for
_years_. I wish that stop being the case with the new versions.

Also, unrelated to IE, but why doesn't Windows 10 add out of the box
encryption like iOS8 and Android L? (one where Microsoft doesn't get to keep
the keys in its cloud - I hope that's clear).

~~~
dmethvin
IE12 isn't released so I doubt the feature set is fully established. The
status.modern.ie site has been mentioned on HN a few times though, and it does
have some info.
[https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts](https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts)

------
mmastrac
I'd love to see them harness the new-found underdog energy they have and
develop a proper Mac/Linux port of IE that they can maintain alongside the
desktop version.

I honestly do my best to test across all the modern browsers when I develop,
but having to spin up a random VM running whatever version of windows they
require for whatever the edge version of IE is starts to get old after a
while.

If the Chrome and Firefox teams can maintain multiple architectures and
release them in lock-step, it's certainly possible for Microsoft to _start_ on
the road to this process, even if it takes them a couple of years.

And would open-sourcing the browser really kill them?

~~~
tkmcc
Internet Explorer is a relatively simple executable that relies on other
Windows DLLs to do pretty much everything that needs to be done. Check out the
architecture here: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/aa741312.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/aa741312.aspx)

Ideally just the Trident rendering engine (in MSHTML.dll) could be ported to
other platforms for web developer use, but I don't know how reliant on other
Windows features it is. I also don't think it's much of a priority (or at all
feasible) for the IE team to re-architect their entire product, but I would
love for them to prove me wrong.

------
wnevets
People who still hate on IE are living in the past. Its been many years since
the "fuck the web" days of Microsoft.

~~~
grecy
Do keep in mind lots of us are forced to live in the past.

Developing a large app for healthcare, we MUST support IE 6, and IE 6 alone.

~~~
munificent
> we MUST support IE 6,

This part sucks.

> and IE 6 alone.

But at least you have this. It's a hell of a lot worse when you're trying to
support IE 6 _and other browsers too_.

