Posted by Sven Gothel on Mar 04, 2011; 8:10pm
URL: https://forum.jogamp.org/WebGL-specification-1-0-is-final-and-also-WebCL-tp2631673p2635294.html

On Friday, March 04, 2011 19:03:57 BrickFarmer [via jogamp] wrote:
>
> I think the performance is becoming less of an issue.  Javascript is probably
> running as fast now as Java was when JOGL first got going,
Agreed .. even thought javascript is still around 2-3 times slower in some cases
  http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/javascript.php
it's only about time IMHO when they 'line up'.

> especially since
> ES2 means most of the work is on the GPU these days.  
I don't think this is related. You still might have cpu based preprocessing,
data transfer/management, etc.
Don't know how well javascrip's API allows DMA transfers using an equivalent
of nio let's say etc. I am afraid these things just don't exist.

Much more important here IMHO is maturity and convenience,
but since I have very very little experience in 'hacking' together web pages
with javascript - I really can make an objective statement here anyways :)
Maybe it's more about the less complex use-cases, even though you sure can
send complex javascript source through the http/gzip-ped channel :)

So IDEs .. existing tools etc may change the landscape.
Indeed .. too bad that almost nodbody offered a nice UI tool for the
Java/JOGL combination :)

> The browser
> compositing is probably the biggest drain on performance for WebGL.  
YES, since it is a constraint.
For JOGL we actually desire offscreen rendering into a browsers HTML5 DIV layer
for later composition - as an option of course.
If anybody has an idea it would be greatly appreciated.
For example .. how to target the browsers 'offscreen' pixmap/bitmap memory (whatever)
with JOGL .. and sync rendering ?

>
> I really like the sound of 1 second applet startup! Although I will only
> belive it when I see Oracle deliver this for windows and especially OSX.
Well, I can tell you I have seen my experiments with an AWT less plugin3
doing exactly like this .. below one second incl. launching JOGL!
Technically it is very much possible - it just would need the will
and 'political strength' to execute.

>
> I doubt we could ever grab the WebGL context from within an applet,
As described above, a native offscreen windowing id would be the true desired feature,
since we really don't need WebGL at all. It was just a thought ..

> since WebGL is inside the secure sandbox
Well .. that really depends on the implementation.
Last time I checked .. it was running within the browser process,
hence it is everything but secure.
Maybe it has changed now ? Dunno.

> and plugin-free,
That depends on the definition of a plugin.
For example you could deploy FF3 + JRE6, which cache is populated with JOGL :)

> whereas Java is on the plugin side.  
And IMHO a good thing - proper seperation of roles and features.
The only downside (practical) is/was the very very poor Applet support within browsers
until today (since AWT initialization still takes forever > 0.5s).

> Although that is the whole advantage of WebGL :)
One monolithic beast .. well :)

In the end, I guess the user doesn't really care.
However the browser vendor do a bit, since they have to implement it for their product.
Mozilla and other 'open source' kit's may share - sure.

It should just work.
Which brings you back to Java vs ECMA Script, read above.

>
> What I'm thinking though is just something that takes our JOGL code and
> generates the equivalent Javascript.  Would that appeal to anyone?  I'm not
> volunteering at this point :)  but it might be something I have some time
> for in the summer...

I don't even know why one should do that ?
Maybe some 'tools' or utilities.
However, JOGL is quite low level with some amnenities .. but thats it.
Utils maybe be ported if anybody has an interest .. sure.

>
> I just love the idea of still writing in Java, but being able to deploy to
> iOS, Android, and all the current desktops.  And I'm really not bothered
> about IE support.  Mobile devices seem to be the winner in games these days
> anyway.

Yeah that would be .. seeing Steve Jobs allowing ECMA Script, WebGL and all of that
defeating his whole VM bullshit politics to bind his customers to his Apple API
and hence it's AppStore :)

however .. (again) we will deliver JOGL on android.

>
> +1 vote for JOGL2 release asap
Dude .. it is released (again) v2.0-rc2
Let's not split hairs about the term 'release' and 'version numbers'.

> and 2.1 for new goodies
v2.0-rc3 first :)

then sometime:
v2.0
v2.0.1 (add ons, fixes, compatible)
...

v2.1 (with some API changes - maybe !)

~Sven