Bck2Brwsr

From APIDesign

Revision as of 10:34, 3 September 2017

Bck2Brwsr VM is a Java virtual machine which is capable to take bytecode and convert it (either ahead-of-time e - e.g. during compilation - or just-in-time, e.g. in a browser) into appropriate JavaScript code which does the same thing. As a result one can write in Java, compile with JavaC, process it with Bck2Brwsr (usually via its Maven plugin, but possibly also directly via programmatic APIs) into a JavaScript file(s) that can be executed in any modern browser (IE 10 at least, please).

The easiest way to start is to play with a DEW - the Development Environment for Web. Just visit http://dew.apidesign.org/dew and edit, compile, run in a browser without installing anything or using (now banned) Java plugins.

The Bck2Brwsr project supports the generic and portable HTML/Java APIs as defined by NetBeans. Use them to run your application on desktop as a standalone application, as a NetBeans or Eclipse plugin or in a browser, via Bck2Brwsr VM.

Motivation

During my duties at JavaOne2012 my feeling (primed by observing various RSS feeds full of posts about something which ends .js) that Java is no longer as cool as it used to be straightened. It always starts by loosing interest of newcomers, targeting just a piece of the technology segment and soon once Good Technology becomes new COBOL. Can that happen to Java? Just read Is JavaScript the Future of Programming? and (if you like Java), you'll get scared. I decided to do something about that. I'd like to return my favorite programming language Bck2Brwsr.

Licensing

The code of Bck2Brwsr is heavily derived from OpenJDK source code (especially the libraries part, not the HotSpot part). Bck2Brwsr thus needs to match the OpenJDK licensing and be compatible with it. The licensing goal is however the same as in case of OpenJDK:

• if you write your application and execute it against standard JDK libraries - use the classpath exception
• if you hack the Bck2Brwsr VM itself - follow the GPLv2 license

This kind of setup should give Java developers freedom to build their applications and distribute them under conditions of their choose, while making sure modifications, enhancements and improvements of the Bck2Brwsr VM code itself remain publicly available.

Goals

Create small Java (check the Bck2BrwsrJavadoc) capable to boot fast and run in 100% of modern browsers including those that have no special support for Java.

Demonstrate that Java has benefits over JavaScript when creating larger HTML5 applications.

Unlike other similar efforts, the goal of this project is not to execute any existing Java library. It is expected that libraries for the new, limited environment need to be specially designed. For example one cannot start new threads (as of Bck2Brwsr 0.13 even there is a proposal to do something with it).

Demo

The current flagship demo is MineSweeper running in the browser: http://xelfi.cz/minesweeper/bck2brwsr/

As a memento it makes sense to keep in mind the little calculator demo showing the first application that I managed to get running in the browser. The application is packaged in a JAR file and the Bck2Brwsr VM loads necessary classes and transforms them into JavaScript on the fly.

There is/was (relatively) enhanced Twitter demo showing various technologies including JSONP communication with the server. However as Twitter abandoned its authorization free API in May 2013, the communication with the server is broken.

For JavaOne2013 I developed a chess application showing use of knockout.js from a Java code. See Knockout4Java.

To demonstrate my geolocation API, I created another Where are you? demo.

We also managed to port JavaFX to Bck2Brwsr and here is a proof of that. There is an overhead to load JavaFX scene graph API, so excuse slight delay when downloading and booting the app. When finally running, the performance should be OK.

Try It Yourself!

It is simple to try Bck2Brwsr! The project skeleton is provided as Maven archetype. Follow steps described at Bck2BrwsrViaCLI or Knockout4Java tutorial.

What is in New Releases?

Next Version 0.22 Will ...

• Support for Apache HTML/Java API version 1.5.1
• Exceptions capture stacktrace via Error.stack when created (if the stack field is supported)

Version 0.21

Contains necessary bugfixes to run Dew with most recent versions of the used projects:

• Internationalization issues fixed
• Proxies now implement even super interfaces
• Caching a miss when running tests
• Use of shl64 fixed.
• Update to JDK8_144

List of changes is here

Version 0.20

This version of Bck2Brwsr VM is called Radtouren 2017 version, as it has been prepared and released while our gang was bicycling in Korutany. Sleeping in a tent in camps, bicycling whole day, coding in a morning. What can be more fun?

• Support for Html/Java API version 1.4
• Build & tests succeed on GraalVM
• Few bugfixes
  • Support for NOP instruction
  • Can execute some Kotlin code
• Implementation of ClassValue

Wanna transpile Java to JavaScript. Give Bck2Brwsr a try!

Version 0.19

Bck2Brwsr 0.19 comes with many little improvements and one new feature: it can execute JUnit in the browser!

• Better support for Annotation - so good that bck2brwsr can now execute JUnit tests
• Support for all classes from java.util.concurrent package, so JUnit runs without problems
• Switching to version 2.1.0 for RetroLambda
• More robust generated JavaScript file - doesn't override already defined classes
• Uses version 1.3 of Html4Java API.
• Record name of an OSGi bundle to be used when Maven coordinates are missing like in JUnit case
• Don't convert Date objects to current time millis
• Use boolean.valueOf() to simplify mixing of boxed and unboxed booleans
• Perform more conversions before returning Java value to JavaScript from a Java callback
• Launcher.createBrowser can specify its own page
• Make sure class cast exception contains the same message as produced by JDK
• Convert undefined value read from arrays into null
• Convert content of array properly before entering JavaScript
• Turning the bck2brwsr VM into an OSGi bundle
• Introducing vmtest.precompiled=<regexp> property to verify that bck2brwsr generated resources are really used
• Don't include VM in VMTest initialization, let it be loaded on demand
• System.exit terminates associated launcher
• eval(JavaScriptResource) as string to prevent double obfuscation
• Don't report warnings when generating minified version of bck2brwsr libraries

Get the bits from the Maven central repository!

Version 0.17

Bck2Brwsr version 0.17 is faster. Ten years ago nobody would imagine dynamic languages could get as good performance as they have now. The feeling that JavaScript just can't be fast is presumably present in many of our souls. The truth is, it can be relatively fast - not as fast as Java as my experiment with Sieve of Eratosthenes shows, but pretty damn fast. Certainly not an excuse to be ten times slower than HotSpot (which was the previous state of Bck2Brwsr).

The daily work on Truffle compiler team and the time I got when traveling from Snowcamp at Grenoble gave me a chance to speed Bck2Brwsr up. The sieve being a nice - e.g. small and focused - benchmark. Originally the algorithm couldn't be finished in a reasonable time when running on old version of Bck2Brwsr, but knowing what optimizing compilers seek for, it was relatively easy to speed it up ten times.

With great pleasure I announce that Bck2Brwsr, the most complete Java VM in browser (that can run Javac as shown by Dew project) has been sped up many times being at most three times slower than HotSpot. Given the primary goal of Bck2Brwsr is modularity and not speed, I consider it a good sped up even knowing there is a room to make it even faster.

Enjoy the Bck2Brwsr 0.17's speed!

Version 0.16

Bck2Brwsr now bundles precompiled Bck2BrwsrLibraries for HTML/Java API version 1.2.3. Better handling of fully qualified names that contain an underscore. Reflection to non-static methods passes parameters the right way.

Release 0.14 and 0.15

Bugfix 5930. Implemented StrictMath to delegate to Math. Locale reads real user locale from surrounding browser. A bit more optimized for execution on Chrome. Fixes a VM bug so JBox2D Physics Engine executes without errors. Support for signed JARs.

The original plan to run RxJava in Bck2Brwsr VM (demo available at http://xelfi.cz/RxJava/0.1/) has not materialized. I got upset as the RxJava guys decided to not accept my pull request for artificial reasons. Looks like they don't have much clue about modularity.

Release 0.13

Release 0.13 of Bck2Brwsr VM is mostly a bugfix release. It fixes problem in Collections.shuffle caused by wrong shr64 implementation (which was basically a single character fix, but it took me an hour to find it) and library generating problem on computers using different encoding than UTF-8.

The Bck2Brwsr VM 0.13 is good enough to power another classical game: fifteen.

The released bits are @ maven.java.net repository as of Jan 12, 2015.

Release 0.12

Libraries can be pre-compiled and published as Maven artefacts (see Bck2BrwsrLibraries how to). The Knockout4Java Maven archetype has been modified to use the precompiled version of Bck2Brwsr rt. jar emulation library and HTML/Java APIs:

$ mvn archetype:generate \
  -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apidesign.html \
  -DarchetypeArtifactId=knockout4j-archetype \
  -DarchetypeVersion=1.1.2 \
  -Dbck2brwsr=true
# answer few questions...
$ cd nameofyourproject
# run on desktop
$ mvn process-classes exec:java
# run in a browser
$ mvn -Pbck2brwsr clean package bck2brwsr:show

Supporting Bck2BrwsrBlobURLs so one can display images available as in JAR resources.

Release 0.11

The new version fixes problems with obfuscation mode (a regression in Bck2Brwsr 0.10). Now the final application can be FULLy obfuscated and the sample org.apidesign.html:knockout4j-archetype:1.0 seems to work with version 0.11. System has nanoTime method (per requests of Toni Epple). Iterating through JavaScript or Java array

var array = [1, 3, 5]
for (var i in array) {
  console.log(i);
}

shows only 0, 1, 2. All additional Bck2Brwsr functions are added as non-enumerable.

Release 0.10

The ahead-of-time mode has support for JDK8's Lambdas (thanks to RetroLambda project). Following example properly returns "XXXXXXXXXX" in Bck2Brwsr 0.10 when compound methods is called:

private static void fewTimes(Runnable r, int cnt) {
    while (cnt-- > 0) {
        r.run();
    }
}
 
public static String compound() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    fewTimes(() -> sb.append('X'), 10);
    return sb.toString();
}

My experience from implementing lambdas in Bck2Brwsr VM was so horrible that I had to express my hate of invokeDynamic in a dedicated essay. Such instruction should have never be added into the JVM specification! See the Lambdas Go Bck2Brwsr video:

Support for JDK8 defender and interface static methods. In the following example the method defaultValue properly returns 42 in Bck2Brwsr 0.10:

public interface Value {
    public static int staticValue(Value v) {
        return v.value();
    }
 
    public default int value() {
        return 42;
    }
 
    public static int defaultValue() {
        return staticValue(new Value() {});
    }
}

The support for lamdas does not mean Bck2Brwsr 0.10 supports JDK8 APIs. It does not. The libraries are still subset of JDK7 - one can use lamdas only in own code so far. Technically it should not be a problem to backport JDK8, libraries - it just has not been done yet.

Using Object.defineProperty to make sure the JavaScript Object has all the methods of Object, while those methods do not show up during iteration

for (var p in anObject) {
  console.log('A prop found ' + p);
}

Release 0.9

Version 0.9 eliminates useless stack assignments. Instead of doing

var stI0 = lcI0;
var stI1 = lcI1;
var stI0 = stI0 + stI1;
return stI0;

the now generated code is

return lcI0 + lcI1;

which is shorter and more human readable. However I doubt the V8 virtual machine sees any benefits - I think the final native code remains the same. But at least the debugging of the generated JavaScript code is now easier - there is less Step Over invocations and it mimics more closely the original Java source.

Optimized the ahead-of-time compilation, so now the http://xelfi.cz/minesweeper/bck2brwsr/ demo starts up instantly. I had to do it, because it was so embarrassing to see TeaVM to boot the same application so quickly: The initial delay is gone, and moreover it downloads necessary libraries in parallel and on background. Now we are ready for next step: share the libraries between different applications.

Can ObfuscatePerLibrary - e.g. each JAR gets compiled ahead-of-time into its own JavaScript file, which can be shared between many applications.

Release 0.8.1

• Supports latest Html4Java revision 0.7.5
• Now we can run JavaC in the browser.
• Many new JDK classes implemented - see at github

Release 0.8

• this is the JavaOne2013 version
• comes with nice NetBeans IDE integration, see plugin portal page.
• sound API
• geolocation API
• Support for smooth communication over WebSocket protocol

Release 0.7.2

• Donated our JSON4Jersey mappings to Jersey project (pull request has been accepted) for Jersey 2.1
• Support for different HTTP methods (like PUT, PULL, etc.)
• Knockout4Java Archetype for dual profile project (FXBrwsr as well as Bck2Brwsr)
• Better support for Boolean mapping in Bck2Brwsr VM
• FXBrwsr launcher stops the HTTP server when the FXBrwsr window is closed

Release 0.7

• FXBrwsr with full debugging support and a demo
• Dual Twitter demo - single source code, dual deployment (watch the same demo)
• Lightweight, generic JSON <-> Java mapping: javadoc
• ProviderAPI and a TCK to bind to other technologies than Bck2Brwsr, Knockout.js and FXBrwsr: javadoc
• Follow naming convention -- now bck2brwsr-maven-plugin -- thanks to Miloš Kleint

Release 0.6

• Full featured demo Twttr demo
• Bck2Brwsr provides better binding of complex classes (defined by a special @Model) annotation
• The @Model classes can be obtained from a server via JSON and JSONP. Use @OnReceive annotation
• Browser testing harness has nicer output with UL and expandable LI

Release 0.5

• Bck2Brwsr 0.5 has better support for MVVC via Knockout.js - see the calculator demo version 0.5
  • Binds String and primitive types
  • Bind array types (exposed as List
  • Basic binding of complex classes
• Separate module for Maven archetype called org.apidesign.bck2brwsr:bck2brwsr-archetype-html-sample (and thus instructions for getting Bck2BrwsrViaCLI has changed)
• Improved speed of Bck2Brwsr virtual machine via better control flow
• Can use Closure compiler to generate more compact code
  • FULL mode: For batch compilation of everything for now (example pom.xml that uses the j2js goal)
  • MINIMAL mode: Strips spaces. Works in dynamic mode (part of the default Maven archetype)
• One incompatible change: AnnotationProcessor for the @Page annotation no longer capitalizes field names found in the HTML page. This was meaningful when the fields were static constants. Now (when they are plain instance fields) it makes little sense.

Release 0.4

0.4 is the first release we managed to upload to java.net Maven repository. Heuréka! See Bck2BrwsrViaCLI for simple three steps towards using this version of Bck2Brwsr.

What you can expect? It works. It is sometimes not fast. It is sometimes broken (what would you expect after four months of development?). Errata:

• When you create new project and want to use it in NetBeans, you need to update nbactions.xml file to refer to 0.4 version, rather than 0.3-SNAPSHOT.

Here is list of achievements for the 0.4 version:

• Throwing and catching exceptions by Tomáš Z., finally block by me.
• Support for converting ByteCode in the browser
• Speed via register based system - Ľubomír finished first version of his register based rewrite on Dec 14, 2012.
• Speed benchmark and infrastructure to measure it in various environments - Martin Š.
  • Run with -Dvmtest.brwsrs=firefox,chromium-browser (or any other browsers you want to test)
• Maven archetype for creating the calculator like demos
• Int32, Int16, Int8 arithmetics done by Martin Š.
• API for drawing on the canvas: Thanks Toni! Read about his experience using Bck2Brwsr.
• More precise int64 support - Martin Š. working on
• Convertor from GWT's native code to Bck2Brwsr's @JavaScriptBody - is sort of there, but not really functional.
• Fields of same name in subclasses. Thanks to Bck2BrwsrMangling.
• Compatibility tests can be written with help of @Compare annotation
• Basic reflection support (e.g. Bck2Brwsr throws SecurityException when allowed),
  • Done: Class.newInstance() works.
  • Done: Class.getMethods() works (returns only public methods)
  • Done: Annotations of classes and methods
• Support for MVVC like Knockout.js that binds String and primitive types
• Packages into a static website via JAR files (which then take long time to inflate)
• Implements java.util.zip APIs

TODO

Although the system is capable to run and execute trivial applications, there remains tons of things to improve and fix. Any help is welcomed. Just let me know if something interests you:

• Access to multipage via sammy.js or crossroads.js
• Method and field overriding with various modifiers
• More reflection support (e.g. don't throw SecurityException when allowed),
  • No private method/field/constructor/class access
  • Probably no field access
  • May need constructor access
• Debugger of Java (and not JavaScript would be good)
• Performance benchmark Sci2000
• Investigate generating asm.js friendly code
• Generate Java wrappers for all HTML5 elements dynamically (Honza)

Resources

• Project page at GitHub
• Mailing list and its archive
• As of January 2017 I am moving the development to GitHub - (the original repository remains read-only).
• Hudson jobs
• Maven Repository at java.net
• Javadoc