Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Are We Fast Yet? Yes We Are!

Spidermonkey has passed V8 on Octane performance on arewefastyet, and is now leading V8 and JSC on Octane, Sunspider and Kraken.

Does this matter? Yes and no. On one hand, it's just a few JS benchmarks, real-world performance is much more complicated, and it's entirely possible that V8 (or even Chakra) could take the lead again in the future. On the other hand, beating your competitors on their own benchmarks is much more impressive than beating your competitors on benchmarks which you co-designed along with your engine to win on, which is the story behind most JS benchmarking to date.

This puts us in a position of strength, so we can say "these benchmarks are not very interesting; let's talk about other benchmarks (e.g. asm.js-related) and language features" without being accused of being sore losers.

Congratulations to the Spidermonkey team; great job!

Monday, 20 October 2014

Pinnacles Tramp #2

During the weekend my children and I, plus some people from church and a friend, went tramping to the Pinnacles hut in Kauaeranga Valley in the Coromandel peninsula (near Thames, about two hours drive from Auckland). The weather was wet but the misty environment had its own delicate beauty. We only got rained on for about 45 minutes of the walk so everyone still had a good time. We played some good games of Bang and Dutch Blitz and, since it was only a single night, we brought real food and ate well!

Photos From North America

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Back In New Zealand

I just finished a three-week stint in North America, mostly a family holiday but some work too. Some highlights:

  • Visited friends in Vancouver. Did the Grouse Grind in just over an hour. Lovely mountain.
  • Work week in Toronto. Felt productive. Ran barefoot from downtown to Humber River and back a couple of times. Lovely.
  • Rendezvoused with my family in New York. Spent a day in White Plains where we used to live, and at Trinity Presbyterian Church where we used to be members. Good sermon on the subject of "do not worry", and very interesting autobiographical talk by a Jewish Christian. Great time.
  • Visited the 9/11 Museum. Very good, though perhaps a shade overstressing the gravity of 3000 lives lost. One wonders what kind of memorial there will be if a nuke kills 100x that many.
  • Our favourite restaurant in Chinatown, Singapore Cafe, is gone :-(.
  • Had some great Persian food :-).
  • The amazingness of New York is still amazing.
  • Train to Boston. Gave a talk about rr at MIT, hosted by my former supervisor. Celebrated 20-year anniversary of me starting as his first (equal) grad student. Had my family watch Dad at work.
  • Spent time with wonderful friends.
  • Flew to Pittsburgh. More wonderful friends. Showed up at our old church with no prior warning to anyone. Enjoyed reactions. God continues to do great things there.
  • La Feria and Fuel-and-Fuddle still great. Still like Pittsburgh a lot.
  • Flew to San Francisco. Late arrival due to flight being rerouted through Dallas, but did not catch Ebola.
  • Saw numerous of seals and dolphins from the Golden Gate Bridge.
  • Showed my family a real Mozilla office.
  • Two days in Mountain View for Gecko planning meetings. Hilarious dinner incident. Failed to win at Settlers.
  • Took family to Big Basin Redwoods State Park; saw pelicans, deer, a dead snake, a banana slug, and a bobcat.
  • Ever since we made liquid nitrogen ice cream for my bachelor party, I've thought it would make a great franchise; Smitten delivers.
  • Kiwi friends in town for Salesforce conference; took them to Land's End for a walk. Saw a coyote.
  • Watched Fleet Week Blue Angels display from Twin Peaks. Excellent.
  • Played disc golf; absolutely hopeless.
  • Went to church at Home of Christ #5 with friends. Excellent sermon about the necessity of the cross.
  • Flew home on Air NZ's new 777. Upgraded entertainment system is great; more stuff than you could ever hope to watch.

Movie picoreviews:

    Edge Of Tomorrow: Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers. Not as good as Groundhog Day but pretty good.

    X-Men: Days Of Future Past: OK.

    Godzilla: OK if your expectations are set appropriately.

    Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes: watched without sound, which more or less worked. OK.

    Amazing Spider-Man 2: Bad.

    Se7en: Good.