Gordon: An open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript

Quick link to demo:<p><a href="http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/raw/master/demos/tiger.html" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/raw/master/demos/tiger....</a><p>Wish people made github pages a bit more friendly. It's like being thrown into a pit of 1s and 0s.

Just in case anyone was wondering about the project name and is not too familiar with classic science fiction:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_gordon" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_gordon</a>

The demo uses 1/3 as much CPU as a similar Flash app would on my Mac. Very cool.

Flash Gordon: Worst Search Engine Terms Since A* Algorithm

Of course it's damn impressive, but it doesn't seem very <i>useful</i> to me.<p>Nobody uses Flash for the language (actionscript is a terrible mash-up of javascript and Java, and haXe is not a lot better), or because we think the virtual machine is awesome in some way. Simply, we use it to bridge the gap between what web browsers can do and what native apps can do (access to webcams and microphones, local files, real tcp/ip sockets, etc, etc).<p>Having said all that, who knows - maybe web browsers really will eventually bridge those gaps themselves, and this will just be used to run legacy Flash code. It's possible I guess.

This was my 2009 new-years prediction... damn it, just out! The best demo is <a href="http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/blue.html" rel="nofollow">http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/blue.html</a>

Has anyone tried this out? Is it more than a toy?<p>README says little <a href="http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/blob/master/README" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/blob/master/README</a>

Does this actually implement the equivalent of Adobe's Flash runtime in Javascript? Does it work for all SWFs? If so, is there some sort of magic involved? If this works, how come things like Gnash and swfdec have never been able to achieve full compatability with Flash, yet this has seemingly come out of nowhere and done just that?

"Dispatch war rocket AJAX to bring back his body!"

I had already used the name for my lisp flash library :( <a href="http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/gordon" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/gordon</a> (not that it is a very original name or anything ;))

Too bad the name is already used for a flash decompiler <a href="http://www.futurecandy.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.futurecandy.net/</a>

Cool technology to pursue but considering how Flash content's CPU requirements are often a problem on C-based interpreters, this doesn't seem like a practical thing.

This leaks memory like a sieve on Chromium, unfortunately. Be very interested to see where this goes eventually though.

SWF files on the iPhone.

Great! now people will go back to blocking JS to avoid ads like the old days.<p>All that easy ride of blocking just the flash player left the web all screwed up with that JS for content running loose.<p>Good ridance, ajax.