Accelerating Startup Time of React Native Applications by Compiling JavaScript Ahead-Of-Time Under Network Communication Security

Abstract

React Native is a popular framework for building cross-platform mobile applications that takes advantage of the popularity of JavaScript and the React framework. For a long time, JavaScript has been considered a language that is not suitable for AOT (ahead-of-time) compilation due to its dynamic nature, and most JavaScript applications, for example React Native applications, rely on just-in-time compilation to achieve high performance. In this paper, we present JWST, an ahead-of-time JavaScript compiler that compiles JavaScript to a number of desktop and mobile targets in the context of secure network communications, including x86, x86_64, ARM64, and WebAssembly, etc. The compiler is built on top of the existing JavaScript interpreter QuickJS. By compiling the scripts of React Native applications ahead of time, we are able to achieve significant performance improvements in startup time, which is important for user experience. Compared to using the stock JavaScriptCore runtime, we are able to cut the startup time of React Native applications by 29% on average, and up to 38% on an ARM64 device with a Kirin 990E CPU. This not only improves the user experience but also enhances the response speed and stability of applications in a secure network communication environment, providing new ideas for safe and efficient mobile application development.