Asm.js

asm.js
Designed byMozilla
First appeared21 March 2013; 11 years ago (2013-03-21)[1]
OSPlatform independent
Websiteasmjs.org
Influenced by
JavaScript
Influenced
WebAssembly

asm.js is a subset of JavaScript designed to allow computer software written in languages such as C to be run as web applications while maintaining performance characteristics considerably better than standard JavaScript, which is the typical language used for such applications.

asm.js consists of a strict subset of JavaScript, to which code written in statically typed languages with manual memory management (such as C) is translated by a source-to-source compiler such as Emscripten (based on LLVM).[2] Performance is improved by limiting language features to those amenable to ahead-of-time optimization and other performance improvements.

Mozilla Firefox was the first web browser to implement asm.js-specific optimizations, starting with version 22.[3]

asm.js is superseded by WebAssembly.

  1. ^ "asm.js in Firefox Nightly". Luke Wagner's blog. 21 Mar 2013. Retrieved 13 Nov 2014.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference github.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Firefox 22.0 release notes". Mozilla. Retrieved July 4, 2013.