IE running native code?

Dean Hachamovitch stressed the importance of running native code for the best user experience in a browser and mentioned countless times that IE runs native code when rendering HTML 5. That's kind of an interesting angle on the difference between IE and other browsers that I've never heard before. AFAIK, Chrome and FireFox aren't running in some Java Virtual Machine so they're running native code code too.

So what exactly did Hachamovitch mean by running native code? Is he talking specifically about hardware acceleration of the graphics?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/04/12/native-html5-first-ie10-platform-preview-available-for-download.aspx

directly using what Windows provides and avoiding abstractions, layers, and libraries that slow down your site and your experience

with all the anti plugin talk they did on the keynote it'd be funny if ie9 for wp7 was written in silverlight im guessing thatss not the case though..

58 minutes ago, Larry Osterman wrote

As I understand it, Chrome and FF abstract their rendering engines.  The HTML layout engine talks to a platform independant virtualization layer which in turn talks to the OS specific rendering engine. 

If you're talking about how Gecko uses Cairo (and WebKit does something similar) then it's no different to how IE uses GDI or Direct2D/DirectWrite, and I haven't heard any bad things about Cairo. Can you elaborate?

@W3bbo:

Firefox renders through Cairo, but they use a Direct2D backend for Cairo. 

So on Firefox it's

Firefox -> Cairo -> Direct2D -> Direct3D -> D3D Driver -> DMA -> Screen

vs

IE-> Direct2D -> Direct3D -> D3D Driver -> DMA -> Screen

So they have an additional layer of abstraction that makes it more difficult to perform D2D specific optimizations.

@cbae:

Basically like the fish tank demo when 1000 fish is still boring max 60fps vs other browsers? But, IMO, a lot of notebooks and desktops still using crappy Intel graphcs processor, which, Hardware acceleration won't do anything as the Intel GPU is horrendous. And typical site cater to those crappy Intel Graphics chip to begin with.

What they mean is that IE9 compiles Javascript to native code and runs it directly on the CPU, rather than doing a while loop over some pseudo-code. Also IE9 sends drawing primitives via DirectX to your graphics card rather than drawing them in software because your GPU is better at drawing than your CPU is.

So, I wonder how they wrote IE for Windows Phone 7? Do you suppose that uses indirection?

-Josh

@JoshRoss: IE on the phone is a completely different program to IE on Windows, and shares almost nothing but the name.

@C9Matt:

I don't think that's what they're saying.  All the major browsers now JIT compile JS code.  They mean it runs as a native app on Windows and gives better experience (uses jump lists, taskbar pinning, direct2d, etc) versus browsers that try to run everywhere and are a lowest common denominator experience.

5 minutes ago, C9Matt wrote

@JoshRoss: IE on the phone is a completely different program to IE on Windows, and shares almost nothing but the name.

That used to be true but it's not anymore with IE9.  I think current IE on mobile is some old build of desktop IE, 6.0 or something.

You're thinking of Pocket IE (PIE) which is ancient now.

6 minutes ago, C9Matt wrote

@JoshRoss: IE on the phone is a completely different program to IE on Windows, and shares almost nothing but the name.

Dean said that the rendering engines are compiled from the same source tree and use the same test suite, hence they are the same thing. only the shell / UI is different.

@CreamFilling512: IE8 doesn't JIT javascript. IE9 is the first IE to JIT code. Also all major browsers are all C++ code since the first version, and thus "native code" in that sense, so they won't be using that meaning.

@felix9:This is true of IE9 for Windows Phone, but I believe the current version is a combination of IE6-8 code in a Frankenstein configuration.

IMHO 'Native HTML5' is just a marketing buzzword used to keep Windows in the spotlight.

unvoidably, the more success HTML5 is, the more irrelevant the underlying OS is. the better IE get, the more dangerous Windows is. here is no lock-in ! the only thing close is the performance advantadges. The IE team must protect Windows for Microsoft.

But its OK. every company do marketing and produce buzzwords, its just business.

5 minutes ago, felix9 wrote

IMHO 'Native HTML5' is just a marketing buzzword used to keep Windows in the spotlight.

unvoidably, the more success HTML5 is, the more irrelevant the underlying OS is.

Let's place bets on when Microsoft decides to drop Silverlight as a web platform. My money's on 2 years from now.

1 hour ago, W3bbo wrote

*snip*

Let's place bets on when Microsoft decides to drop Silverlight as a web platform. My money's on 2 years from now.

Silverlight applications can live outside of a browser as easily as they can live inside. As long as the Internet can be used as the distribution mechanism for the applications, does it really matter what the container is in which a Silverlight application runs? The Windows App Store and the Windows Phone Marketplace will provide a places for Silverlight development to flourish, so if Silverlight applications are no longer supported in IE, it's not going to matter much.