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Open Source

Famo.us To Open Source Rendering Engine Replacement JavaScript Framework 48

snydeq writes "Famo.us has announced it will be open sourcing its framework for achieving native app performance within the browser, InfoWorld reports. 'Why so much fuss over another JavaScript framework? Mainly because it is unlike any other framework out there: Famo.us replaces the browser's rendering engine with its own, which is written entirely in JavaScript, and fuels it with the GPU acceleration provided by CSS's 3D transformation functions. Most any device these days that can run a modern browser — even a modest smartphone — has some kind of GPU supporting it, so why not leverage that? Armed with Famo.us, developers can maintain a single code base that performs well across many platforms.' Demo code is available on Codepen. Famo.us is also partnering with Firebase, a database as a service for mobile and Web apps."
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Famo.us To Open Source Rendering Engine Replacement JavaScript Framework

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  • <clippy> It looks like you're trying to use advanced CSS/javascript features that we don't support. Would you like to write a letter instead </clippy>

  • by pavon ( 30274 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @04:41PM (#45601341)

    Too lazy to write a cross-platform website? No worry dawg, we put a browser in your browser, so you can suck while you suck.

  • WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by amicusNYCL ( 1538833 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @05:02PM (#45601653)

    Famo.us To Open Source Rendering Engine Replacement JavaScript Framework

    That headline was generated using one of those marketing buzzword generators, wasn't it?

    • by mha ( 1305 )

      I read it 3 or 4 times before I gave up and read the summary. Sounds like someone (submitter and the one accepting the submission) are easily excitable, or it is a marketing placement (which does not necessarily mean "for pay", good connections can achieve more, sometimes).

      Unless I'm wrong and this is the most exciting thing since the creation of http://www.reddit.com/r/cats/ [reddit.com]

  • I wonder what impact this engine could have on the mobile frameworks out there ( JQM, PhoneJs etc ). The article states that they got the head mobile guy from Facebook. The next few months could get very interesting in that world.
    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      if it's the guy that headed the html5 app versions of the facebook app, then the impact is neglible.

      jqm itself is getting pointless. well it always kinda was pointless since it's heavier than normal jquery! and causes all kind of headaches with the "cool tricks" it uses for loading the next page to the same (with javascript, wanna guess what that does for memory??)page etc.

  • Famo.us replaces the browser's rendering engine with its own, which is written entirely in JavaScript, and fuels it with the GPU acceleration provided by CSS's 3D transformation functions.

    To me, that sounds very much like the direction in which Chrome/Blink is heading - shrink the C++ codebase and improve all things Javascripty by removing the costly native/JS boundaries (allowing the browser, for example, to do interprocedural optimizations between the page code and the DOM routines etc.). Except that Blink at least sounds reputable. :-)

  • s/performs well across many platforms/performs well only on platforms with GPU accelerated browsers supporting new CSS3 3D standards (but this is still a working draft, so not an official standard). Doesn't work at all on platforms without said support/

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      Well, it works acceptably on my BlackBerry Z10. Way better than jQuery Mobile at least, but that's not exactly a high-bar.

      It works wonderfully on my bargain-basement Windows 7 netbook in Chrome 31, but doesn't work at all in FireFox 25 or IE 11.

      I figure by that time it works acceptably in enough places, it'll be useless -- solving a problem no one has any more.

  • by Mister Liberty ( 769145 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @06:04PM (#45602593)

    For the Dalvik version which can run on an Android simulator in Eclipse under
    Windows 8, churning away within Virtualbox on a Mac OS X.

  • Translation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eulernet ( 1132389 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @06:51PM (#45603089)

    Let me translate the article:

    Famo.us built a Javascript framework for rendering.
    They expected to sell their technology to Google.
    Their plan backfired, because nobody was interested into their product, and they had no interesting application.
    So they "open-sourced" their framework (since it's Javascript, it's already "open-source"), in the hope that some users will come up with a brilliant application, and that their product will have a real value (and so that the company will be saleable).

    While their concept is interesting, I very much doubt that it will ever have a market value.
    It's an existing product searching for its market, instead of a product designed for an identified market.

  • I c.an pu.t ina.pprop.riate punctua.tion in my wr.iting too.

  • But please, can someone explain how the REPLACED the browser rendering engine? The way I see it this is just a js framework that will abstract stuff for you and make you think at the code level that you're working with objects on a scene and not nodes in the DOM.
    Kinda like threejs maybe.
    I can still see div's and other usual html elements there, not even a canvas.
    So I suspect the browser still renders stuff, html that the framework will generate for you. It's not clear to me what they are replacing from w

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