Microsoft has today given an update on its progress in opening up ChakraCore, the JavaScript engine behind Edge and UWP. The company delivered the details at NodeSummit and later reiterated the progress in an official blog post.
While Microsoft is in a cloud first era, we would also think the Era of Openness would be an apt name. The company is embracing other platforms. For the most part this means adding services to the likes of Android and iOS. However, Microsoft is also finally backing Linux in a big way and delving into areas of true openness.
At the start of the year, Microsoft open-source core with a focus on Linux. This is the core of Chakra JavaScript that underpins both Microsoft Edge and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). The company says that making Chakra open was mainly done through with Linux as the “prioritized target.”
Before Microsoft opened the core, this was a Windows-only script. In its blog post, the company explains how the Chakra JavaScript core will run on Linux:
“The first experimental implementation of ChakraCore interpreter and runtime on x64 Linux and OS X 10.9+, along with experimental Node.js with ChakraCore (Node-ChakraCore) on x64 Linux. Our development and testing on Linux happens primarily on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but the support should easily translate to other modern Linux distributions.”
Cross-Platform Functionality
Microsoft points out that users of ChakraCore on other platforms will get the same experience they would on Windows. The company used the official ECMAScript conformance suite, test262 to measure JavaScript features from Node-ChakraCore. However, JIT compilation and concurrent and partial GC features are not yet supported.
Of course, Microsoft’s Era of Openness is more about enticing developers to the Windows platform. Running ChakraCore on OS X and/or Linux gives developers tools to build cross-platform applications that will also work on Windows.
