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Porforr<https://porffor.dev https://porffor.dev> has been working towards the same goal for a while. The creator, CanadaHonk<https://honk.foo https://honk.foo>,

by acmnrs 2mo ago

Porforr<https://porffor.dev https://porffor.dev> has been working towards the same goal for a while. The creator, CanadaHonk<https://honk.foo https://honk.foo>, is extremely talented and the project still only passes ~68% of Test262. I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast, unless I'm misunderstanding the scope of this project.

simonw 2mo ago
> I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast Coding agents. They landed 918,000 lines of code in a single week: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?selectedMetric=additions https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?s...
- acmnrs 2mo ago
  That makes sense. It also seems like this uses a lot more dependencies and tiers of compilation whereas Porforr is trying to do everything from scratch.
  - rixed 2mo ago
    900k lines of code plus tons of deps for a compiler? Does that really make sense to you?
    - mi_lk 2mo ago
      It's coming from Vercel, what do you expect?
    - queenkjuul 2mo ago
      I don't actually see any dependencies other than node and typescript (and the optional quickjs package) (maybe they inlined dependencies? But the package.json files don't indicate any npm dependencies)
- pizlonator 2mo ago
  That explains why: - the architecture is idiotic. - they have zero credible perf numbers. I plan to benchmark it using generally accepted methods. Porffor makes careful trade offs that make sense and is benchmarked in a way that I can believe. (Source: I make dynamic languages fast for a living)
  - bbor 2mo ago
    Putting aside the whole “team of professionals putting out a product vs solo dev fine tuning their opus” of it all: Can you clarify what about the architecture is ‘idiotic’? Not trying to catch you or demand a defense, just looking for a vague description. I don’t even know how to start examining the architecture of something like this.
    - pizlonator 2mo ago
      Yeah - using quickjs at all in a thing that needs perf. Quickjs is hilariously slow. Midwits use it because it has “quick” in the name. - using floats for numbers and deferring int optimizations for later. Inferring ints is like half the problem of fast JS. - rejecting inadequately annotated or too dynamic code without a whole heck of a lot of self-reflection about how unlikely that is to work out. The observation that languages that are even slightly dynamic need dynamic JIT opts is very old; folks figured that out in the 80s. This project reeks of weapons grade AI psychosis
      - simonw 2mo ago
        As far as I can tell they pull in QuickJS (actually quickjs-ng) only in the case where the program has untyped dependencies that still need to be run by an interpreter - and they chose that library because it's pretty small (620KB). Did I miss something, are they using it outside of that purpose?
        pizlonator 2mo ago
        They will have untyped dependencies. That’s how the TS/JS ecosystem works. Note that “untyped dependency” means any code that says `any`.
- homebrewer 2mo ago
  Christ. Imagine if bridges, skyscrapers, dams, cars, airplanes were designed and built like that. I vibeslopped thousands of pages of blueprints, nobody reviewed them, but another team of digital monkeys with the intellect of an ant have already built the bridge, and it seems to not have collapsed yet, so we're already directing traffic there. I can't imagine actual engineers feeling anything but deepest contempt for this industry.
  - satvikpendem 2mo ago
    "Actual engineers" don't really care about software engineering, much less a strong emotion at all like the "deepest contempt" and many of them already vibe code today for their work anyway.
    - leansensei 2mo ago
      Oh no, we do, because the software world has been abusing what engineering means for decades, in order to inflate job titles. Most people are programmers, not software engineers, and that's OK.
      - daishi55 2mo ago
        What we do is absolutely engineering, there’s just a lot less credentialing upfront and rigor before something is released, because usually people’s lives do not depend on it and it’s easy to release updates. But it is indeed engineering, and that’s OK.
        zaphirplane 2mo ago
        Why is it engineering what makes it engineering
        daishi55 2mo ago
        We use science and technology to design, build, and maintain complex systems that solve real-world problems. Do you have some other definition of engineering that excludes SWE?
- themgt 2mo ago
  They landed 802,000 lines of code in a single commit: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/commit/23d5918a5381e0bf5098c950809d6d23800dd39a https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/commit/23d5918a5381e0...
  - badatnames 2mo ago
    This is not the Vercel ad they think it is.

by acmnrs 2mo ago

simonw 2mo ago

> I'm more than a little suspicious of how Vercel has made so much progress so fast Coding agents. They landed 918,000 lines of code in a single week: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?selectedMetric=additions https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/graphs/contributors?s...

acmnrs 2mo ago
That makes sense. It also seems like this uses a lot more dependencies and tiers of compilation whereas Porforr is trying to do everything from scratch.
- rixed 2mo ago
  900k lines of code plus tons of deps for a compiler? Does that really make sense to you?
  - mi_lk 2mo ago
    It's coming from Vercel, what do you expect?
  - queenkjuul 2mo ago
    I don't actually see any dependencies other than node and typescript (and the optional quickjs package) (maybe they inlined dependencies? But the package.json files don't indicate any npm dependencies)
pizlonator 2mo ago
That explains why: - the architecture is idiotic. - they have zero credible perf numbers. I plan to benchmark it using generally accepted methods. Porffor makes careful trade offs that make sense and is benchmarked in a way that I can believe. (Source: I make dynamic languages fast for a living)
- bbor 2mo ago
  Putting aside the whole “team of professionals putting out a product vs solo dev fine tuning their opus” of it all: Can you clarify what about the architecture is ‘idiotic’? Not trying to catch you or demand a defense, just looking for a vague description. I don’t even know how to start examining the architecture of something like this.
  - pizlonator 2mo ago
    Yeah - using quickjs at all in a thing that needs perf. Quickjs is hilariously slow. Midwits use it because it has “quick” in the name. - using floats for numbers and deferring int optimizations for later. Inferring ints is like half the problem of fast JS. - rejecting inadequately annotated or too dynamic code without a whole heck of a lot of self-reflection about how unlikely that is to work out. The observation that languages that are even slightly dynamic need dynamic JIT opts is very old; folks figured that out in the 80s. This project reeks of weapons grade AI psychosis
    - simonw 2mo ago
      As far as I can tell they pull in QuickJS (actually quickjs-ng) only in the case where the program has untyped dependencies that still need to be run by an interpreter - and they chose that library because it's pretty small (620KB). Did I miss something, are they using it outside of that purpose?
      - pizlonator 2mo ago
        They will have untyped dependencies. That’s how the TS/JS ecosystem works. Note that “untyped dependency” means any code that says `any`.
homebrewer 2mo ago
Christ. Imagine if bridges, skyscrapers, dams, cars, airplanes were designed and built like that. I vibeslopped thousands of pages of blueprints, nobody reviewed them, but another team of digital monkeys with the intellect of an ant have already built the bridge, and it seems to not have collapsed yet, so we're already directing traffic there. I can't imagine actual engineers feeling anything but deepest contempt for this industry.
- satvikpendem 2mo ago
  "Actual engineers" don't really care about software engineering, much less a strong emotion at all like the "deepest contempt" and many of them already vibe code today for their work anyway.
  - leansensei 2mo ago
    Oh no, we do, because the software world has been abusing what engineering means for decades, in order to inflate job titles. Most people are programmers, not software engineers, and that's OK.
    - daishi55 2mo ago
      What we do is absolutely engineering, there’s just a lot less credentialing upfront and rigor before something is released, because usually people’s lives do not depend on it and it’s easy to release updates. But it is indeed engineering, and that’s OK.
      - zaphirplane 2mo ago
        Why is it engineering what makes it engineering
        daishi55 2mo ago
        We use science and technology to design, build, and maintain complex systems that solve real-world problems. Do you have some other definition of engineering that excludes SWE?
themgt 2mo ago
They landed 802,000 lines of code in a single commit: https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/commit/23d5918a5381e0bf5098c950809d6d23800dd39a https://github.com/vercel-labs/scriptc/commit/23d5918a5381e0...
- badatnames 2mo ago
  This is not the Vercel ad they think it is.