Mozilla Labs pops out JavaScript language tool for coders

Mozilla has released a JavaScript engine strictly for testing purposes to allow web developers to gain deeper access to – and better understanding of – the code underpinning its browser.

The Narcissus engine and Zaphod script look-up tool have been added to Mozilla Labs to help the open source outfit develop new ideas for the JavaScript language. “What features should we add to JavaScript? What should the syntax/semantics be? What practical issues will come up that we have not considered so far? With Narcissus and Zaphod, we can more easily answer these questions,” said Mozilla’s Tom Austin.

“In programming language (PL) research, we like to write up fancy evaluation rules containing lots of Greek letters. Unfortunately, these rules tend to be inscrutable to anyone who isn’t a PL researcher. Even for PL researchers, there is something unsatisfying about seeing a bunch of rules on a piece of paper.”