[whatwg] Canvas pixel manipulation and performance

[Jason Oster]

On Nov 29, 2009, at 4:19 AM, Mike Hearn wrote:

> I have to wonder if it's worth trying to micro-optimize web APIs like
> this. Your suggestions will squeeze out only a small amount of
> additional performance - the goals will get a bit higher and we'll be
> back at square one.
I've always imagined that was the general flow of performance improvements; tune a little here, change that over there, and you knock some time off your overall benchmark.  I hope I haven't mistaken what you are saying.

> I know NativeClient isn't a proposed spec or standardised piece of web
> infrastructure, but I think what you really need is the ability to
> scribble on a canvas from native code rather than JavaScript. Work
> done on that has the advantage of generalizing to all web APIs and use
> cases rather than just direct graphics access.
That's one way to get a healthy performance boost (typically) but where does the web developer stand in this work?  Are you suggesting native code should replace JavaScript?  On the other hand, I have briefly considered using native code (via XPCOM) in my XULRunner application to grind out every bit of performance possible.  I can understand where you are coming from.