Nova Blog

Today, Nova JavaScript engine has published its first major version 1.0.0!

A few months ago I stumbled upon a realisation that garbage collected handles hold their lifetimes as contravariant.

Previously on this blog I've written about how Nova JavaScript engine models garbage collection using the Rust borrow checker and how to work with it, I've rambled about how I came up with the model, and I've written about the philosophical underpinnings…

Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking: what's this data-oriented design zealot doing, opening their mouth about object-oriented programming?

Hello again!

Exactly 6 months ago I wrote about Nova receiving a grant from NLnet's NGI Zero Core fund and how I was one month into a 6 month leave of absence.

In March, I received news that NLnet had chosen Nova JavaScript engine as one of the projects receiving a grant in the October 2024 call of the NGI Zero Core fund.

We recently merged a large and important pull request that added a lifetime to our JavaScript Value type.

For a JavaScript engine, a garbage collector is one of those things one wishes one could avoid but simply cannot.

At the turn of this month, I went to FOSDEM for the first time in my life.

The end of the year is upon us, and this is as good a point as any to take a look back at what we've achieved in a year's time.

Let me answer that question as quickly as I can without skipping too much of the details: Nova is a JavaScript engine being built by me and a group of compatriots that takes a data-oriented approach to engine design.

The ECMAScript specification contains many purpose-built exotic objects that have very limited and very specific usages.

Many people have taken a stab (and succeeded) at implementing safe garbage collection system and libraries in Rust.

Last time I talked about how non-ordinary objects in Nova delegate their object features to a "backing object".

In the Why build a JavaScript engine?

So, you want to ask the obvious question: Why would someone choose to build a new JavaScript engine?

As the nova project is growing and we are getting more and more attention we decided that it was time to create a website.