RE: [Dynapi-Dev] My JS Optimization Site

[Jeff <jef...@ea...>]

Whew! Go away for a day and the messages pile up!

Raides J. - I was under the impression that this (JIT) was essentially
the case for both browsers, but I could be mistaken. The following is
from the Netscape JavaScript 1.3 reference, describing a function as
opposed to a function object created explicitly:

------------------
Function objects created with the Function constructor are evaluated
each time they are used. This is less efficient than declaring a
function and calling it within
your code, because declared functions are compiled.
-------------------

Eytan -

1) Yes, I think I will be accepting tests, although I have not yet set
up the site to do so (but feel free to send them to me and they will be
among the first that I put up).

2) Duff's Device - What browser were you using? Because IE does much
better at either compiling or optimizing its code, using something like
Duff's Device in that case might actually slow it down, though usually
only by a slight amount (as you experienced) due to the overhead of the
added code. But I believe that this is, in most cases, a small price to
pay for more predictable cross browser performance (i.e., should be MUCH
faster in Netscape). If it was Netscape you were using, which version? I
would assume that all the 4.x broswers behave essentially the same, but
I haven't had a chance to test it on NS6.

This is an area that I am still looking into and I just have not had the
time to do thorough investigations yet.

3) Yes, I think it is clear that some sort of separation between
fundamental optimization and DHTML performance is needed, but I'm not
even half way done with the fundamentals yet!! :-)

4) I'd love to make it a serious site. Right now, however, it's just on
my personal web space at Earthlink, which is is quite limited in terms
of what I am allowed to do with it. I could probably move it to an NT
box at work which would also give me access to MS SQL Server and
ColdFusion, both of which I have used for many projects.

Jeff Greenberg
je...@we...