C/C++ Applications on the Web

Abstract

The JavaScript technology, especially in the latest five years, has been evolving very rapidly. In the world of WWW, of course, other technologies are also available for developers, but JavaScript is one of the best ways to develop applications for both traditional web and the latest mobile environments. The modern web application frameworks unfortunately do not support direct integration of C/C++ technologies. This problem can be solved by various utility software, e.g. the Emscripten compiler, which translates C/C++ codes into JavaScript leveraging LLVM technology as a transitional layer. Thus C/C++ programmers are not omitted from the world of Web and mobile development and they can reuse existing mature codebases, especially in the field of computer graphics. This paper describes theory, practical use and inherent potential deals of Emscripten technology. A native C++ OpenGL application will be used as a real-world example, demonstrating efficiency and flexibility of this technique. Performance evaluation of the JavaScript code compared to the native C/C++ application will also be presented. To promote better understanding, our source code is also available upon request.