I want to embed Javascript in a hobby game engine of mine. Now that we have the 5th generation of Javascript engines out (all blazing fast) I’m curious what engine would you choose to embed in a C++ framework (that includes actual ease of embeding it)?
Note: Just to make it clear, I’m not interested in DOM scripting or writing Javascript in a browser.
Here’s a compilation of links so far and some tips from the thread
- SpiderMonkey
- tracemonkey (note:backwards compatible with spidermonkey):
- V8
- Squirrelfish
Just for the record, I love Lua and have already embedded it in game engines about 5 times at work.
However now this is a hobby project, and I think that Javascript being known by most web developers and because its ECMA, Flash and Flex developers, a game engine that uses Javascript and XML for scripting would be more user-friendly and cater to a larger user base (and one that so far has not had a chance to use their skills for games) than one with Lua (and there are plenty of those around!).
Also for the record I’ll go with V8 on this one, mostly because I like it’s C++ style.
Mozilla’s SpiderMonkey is fairly easy and well-documented. It’s a C API, but it’s straightforward to wrap it in C++. It can be compiled to be thread-safe, which is useful for games since you’d likely want to have your main logic in one thread and user interface logic in a second thread.
Google’s V8 might be a good choice, since you’re using C++, but I have no experience with it yet. According to the documentation (thanks to Daniel James), V8 is not thread-safe, although this may change in the future.
There’s also WebKit’s SquirrelFish, but I couldn’t find a standalone version of that when I was looking earlier.