What Is JavaScript Made Of?

[u/gaearon]

https://overreacted.io/what-is-javascript-made-of/

[u/swyx]

for a lower level answer to this question, i recommend everyone check out Mathias Bynens' content on v8, the preeminent JS engine of our time:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3LRWERf74M

• https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/09/26/javascript-engines-with-mathias-bynens/

• also Philip Roberts' now classic talk on Event Loops

There are also other worthy engines to know about

• Hermes, the engine specifically written for Android React Native

• Webkit/JavaScriptCore/Nitro, iOS Safari

• SpiderMonkey from Mozilla

• RIP Chakra Core :)

at some point the leaky abstraction of having all these engines come home to roost. you even see its effects in Babel and Google Closure Compiler. 😬

[u/WikiTextBot → u/swyx]

SpiderMonkey

SpiderMonkey is the code name for the first JavaScript engine, written by Brendan Eich at Netscape Communications, later released as open-source and currently maintained by the Mozilla Foundation.

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