Currently, computational Android programs run 5 to 10 times slower on Android phones than on comparable Nokia phones, apparently mostly due to the fact that Nokia phones feature a JIT (just-in-time) compiler for Java bytecodes to automatically profile and speed up time-critical sections, whereas Dalvik bytecodes are always only run through an interpreter. In looking for means to accelerate Android programs, I would greatly prefer a platform-independent JIT compiler over any platform-dependent solutions such as the NDK/JNI where different distribution packages must be generated for different target platforms based on ARM, x86, MIPS, whatever: a maintenance, packaging and distribution headache.
Now with Google Chrome 2.0 for the PC incorporating V8, a JIT-like fast Javascript compiler, with V8 already ported to ARM http://code.google.com/apis/v8/build.html, and with Sergey Brin's plans to make Chrome available under Android http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10031318-92.html, can we expect a platform-independent interface for calling Javascript functions from within Android apps? Counterintuitive as this may at first seem since Javascript used to be slow and poorly defined in the past, this may provide a mechanism to speed up time-critical Android application sections in a platform-independent manner (from the Android application programmer's perspective, that is). The math benchmarks of the Sunspider Javascript benchmark suite show a speedup of 5 to 10 times when comparing Google Chrome 2.0 to Firefox 3.010 on the PC. Typically, math code looks syntactically very similar in Java and Javascript, such that there is little effort involved in re-coding one's time-critical sections in Javascript. So, may we expect this major and platform-independent speed-up option for Android applications shortly? :-) Thanks! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
