> > http://blogs.adobe.com/**avikchaudhuri/2012/01/17/the-** > v8-myth-why-javascript-is-not-**a-worthy-competitor/<http://blogs.adobe.com/avikchaudhuri/2012/01/17/the-v8-myth-why-javascript-is-not-a-worthy-competitor/> >
I'd argue the important thing is not the current delta between JS and AS performance. For rendering-related tasks ActionScript is still way ahead (as that blog post tries to highlight and praise). However, that's not what you should focus on. Take a look at this chart: http://iq12.com/blog/as3-benchmark/ which shows the incremental speed improvements for AS code execution vs JS code execution. Ignore the numbers in the chart, and ignore the comparison of AS to JS. The benchmark only highlights things where JS excels (non rendering things). Focus on only one thing in that chart: the number of times the lines change. Since 2007 (when FP9/AS3 came out) there are 3 times when AS3 performance increased. Compare that to the line for JS performance in Chrome, which has 8 jumps in performance since 2009. That's the difference that matters. And yes, you can argue that the GPU stuff with Molehill should be taken into account, etc (although that doesn't help with performance of any content not specifically written for GPU rendering). But I think that chart tells me more than anything else in this debate. AS3 performance has stagnated. JS performance has consistently increased. Is it as good as AS3 right now? No. But largely that doesn't matter. It's the trajectory that matters. But enough about JS performance. My point wasn't to talk shit about Flash. My only point was that writing off HTML/JS as inferior is naive and dangerous.
