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The V8 JavaScript Engine is an open source JavaScript engine developed by Google for the Google Chrome web browser. It has since seen use in many other projects[citation needed]. As of 2012, the head programmer is Lars Bak. The first version of the V8 engine was released at the same time as the first version of Chrome, September 2, 2008.
V8 compiles JavaScript to native machine code (IA-32, x86-64, ARM, or MIPS ISAs) before executing it, instead of more traditional techniques such as interpreting bytecode or compiling the whole program to machine code and executing it from a filesystem. The compiled code is additionally optimized (and re-optimized) dynamically at runtime, based on heuristics of the code's execution profile. Optimization techniques used include inlining, elision of expensive runtime properties, and inline caching, among many others.
V8 compiles JavaScript to native machine code (IA-32, x86-64, ARM, or MIPS ISAs) before executing it, instead of more traditional techniques such as interpreting bytecode or compiling the whole program to machine code and executing it from a filesystem. The compiled code is additionally optimized (and re-optimized) dynamically at runtime, based on heuristics of the code's execution profile. Optimization techniques used include inlining, elision of expensive runtime properties, and inline caching, among many others.