Demystifying (JavaScript) Engines - Alejandro Oviedo, nearForm
"How a JavaScript engine works? What are its basic components? How to measure its performance? What is JIT compilation? Stigmatization: is JavaScript fast enough? are some of the questions I think we currently fail to answer in a, somewhat, short and direct way.
The most advanced JavaScript engines (V8, Chakra and SpiderMonkey) are now Open Source. I think that sets the bar pretty high for the upcoming generation of engines along with the runtimes that are using them - Node.js, JXCore, etc - and challenges developers to try to understand a whole new group of concepts hidden in the execution of their JavaScript applications.
Crankshaft, unoptimized hell, LLVM and asm.js sound like names of main characters or places of a George R. R. Martin’s novel. I’ll talk not only about their definitions but also about their cross-engine representation and status."