Opera Developer News

Carakan F.A.Q.

By Bruce Lawsonbrucelawson. Thursday, February 5, 2009 9:47:24 AM

What is Carakan?

Carakan is Opera's new JavaScript engine. It's still in development, but is already 2.5 times faster than our Opera 10 alpha engine (which itself is 30% faster on real websites than previous versions of Opera). Some aspects are between 5 and 50 times faster!

Why are we developing it?

Because we can! Opera has always been about speed, security and a small memory footprint, so we're constantly improving these aspects of the browser. Many of today's web applications depend heavily on JavaScript, and we're developing what will be the fastest ECMAscript engine on the market.

When will Carakan be available?

Soon. We've chosen to talk about it now as we're discussing it at the Web Directions North conference, but we're still combing its hair and straightening its tie before we're ready to let you see it.

How does it work?

It's a combination of brilliant coding and Scandinavian voodoo magic ("Snowdoo"). If you want more details about the brilliant coding, you can read all about register-based bytecode, automatic object classification and native code generation on the Opera Core Concerns Blog. We're sworn to secrecy about the Snowdoo. By a ~~Yeti~~ troll.

What does "Carakan" mean?

We thought about naming it "Unicorn-badger", "StackDonkey" or "Shouting Otter". But, we've chosen the name "Carakan" (pronounced "Jarakan"), which is the original alphabet from the Indonesian island of Java.

In other words, it's the purest Java Script. When you try it, you'll agree.

Opera web standards curriculum: JavaScript in town!Surfing at BONDI

Comments

Anonymous # Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:01:37 AM

Anonymous writes: zibin says: Fabulous. Snowdoo's the thang

HenryAOTEAROAnz # Thursday, February 5, 2009 10:44:48 AM

Anonymous # Thursday, February 5, 2009 11:58:40 AM

patrick h. lauke writes: sounds swish.

Glebgr1b0k # Thursday, February 5, 2009 1:44:38 PM

Opera is hot!

Pablo García Riverapablogrb # Thursday, February 5, 2009 1:47:46 PM

I love the Opera attitude, rock on devs, can't wait for Opera 10 (and a wii browser update... pretty please)

Haavardhaavard # Thursday, February 5, 2009 2:29:56 PM

You'll have to ask Nintendo about Wii updates...

Agung Nugrohoathrun # Thursday, February 5, 2009 2:32:52 PM

Why the name is "Carakan" not "Hanacaraka"??

I'm from Indonesia

Nicklas Westinkilsmo # Thursday, February 5, 2009 3:34:22 PM

Yes, we found out about the alternative name Hanacaraka after a few days (I'm not from Indonesia), but Carakan was the one that we got first, and Carakan sounds cooler to me.

Charles SchlossChas4 # Thursday, February 5, 2009 4:53:47 PM

FataL # Thursday, February 5, 2009 5:02:27 PM

...we're developing what will be the fastest ECMAscript engine on the market

Oh, please don't say so, because I'm already waiting for the best web developer tools on the market.

Yeni Setiawansandalian # Thursday, February 5, 2009 8:45:23 PM

All thumbs for you guys, I really love the name since I'm a Javanese

Yeni Setiawansandalian # Friday, February 6, 2009 7:36:18 AM

FYI, 'carakan' in Indonesian and Javanese language is pronounced as 'carakan'. Some articles wrote 'carakan' as 'tjarakan' because 'tj' is an old way to write letter 'c' in Indonesian language (prior 1970s).

The letter 'c' in 'carakan' is pronounced like 'c' in 'charm'.

sorinste-ven # Friday, February 6, 2009 12:49:28 PM

i imagined j can't be c

Anonymous # Saturday, February 7, 2009 1:10:55 AM

Anonymous writes: opera 10----please.

Anonymous # Saturday, February 7, 2009 4:20:39 PM

leksa writes: NICE!! Honour to be Indonesian and leave in Java Island, Bruce :) maybe, i'll try build some plugin on it and name it "Keris" or "Gamelan"

Anonymous # Saturday, February 7, 2009 7:57:10 PM

Anonymous writes: When!!???

Nicklas Westinkilsmo # Wednesday, February 18, 2009 10:16:18 PM

sandalian, thank you very much for the information about how it should be pronounced. The good thing is that is how we have been pronouncing it, so we do not have to change.

Anonymous # Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:19:04 AM

aleefus writes: A love Opera! And I am from Java Indonesia, ha ha... Carakan? may be honocoroko kali.... walah, opo tumon..

Anonymous # Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:57:51 AM

Anonymous writes: Why does it only seem to be Indonesian people posting comments :P Anyway, cant wait for the new version of Opera :) I'm already using 10 Alpha and its so much better than any other browser I have ever tried.

sorinste-ven # Friday, February 27, 2009 12:24:41 AM

10 has check speller for english, only

Haavardhaavard # Friday, February 27, 2009 3:01:07 PM

ste-ven: Not really, but spell checking is off-topic. Please do not post off-topic comments.

hadimirac1e # Tuesday, March 3, 2009 6:39:54 AM

* I am late to read this *

i am very proud to hear that opera using carakan.

i will put this post into my Javanese Group

Anonymous # Monday, March 9, 2009 2:45:19 PM

Jonas writes: LOL at poking fun at Mozilla's TraceMonkey code name, and Apple's SquirrelFish. ;)

lucideer # Wednesday, March 11, 2009 11:38:05 AM

StackDonkey would have been brilliant!

(joking)

Anonymous # Friday, March 27, 2009 12:36:02 AM

nakuragen writes: i`m from indonesia :D i see carakan is hanacaraka.hanacaraka is Ha, Na, Ca, Ra, ka , Da , tha, sa, wa, la, ma, gha, Ba, Tha, Nga, & bla.. bla.. heheheh nice , i use opera too.Opera is good browser. yen iso opera di support boso jowo juga ya.. kekek

Chiragchirag64 # Thursday, July 2, 2009 6:22:15 PM

been waitin since ages now :'(

Anonymous # Sunday, July 12, 2009 5:55:23 PM

Anonymous writes: Carakan will be available in opera 10 final?

Anonymous # Saturday, July 25, 2009 5:09:46 AM

Anonymous writes: @ abuv no i dont think so. they say it will be 2.5x faster in sunspider. it is still slower than safari, chrome and firefox(3.5)

lucideer # Sunday, July 26, 2009 10:14:07 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

they say it will be 2.5x faster in sunspider

They said, almost 6 months ago, that it WAS between 2.5 and 50 times faster in SunSpider. In initial tests back then.

Anonymous # Monday, August 10, 2009 2:38:41 PM

Mike writes: I like the idea. I just hope that you aren't targetting this at some pretentious stupid benchmark. Mentioning SunSpider doesn't bode too well there. You might as well do what google and mozzerella did and write your own benchies to prove you're quickest. I have used Opera for over a decade because it feels the fastest and most responsive. It feels safe and sleek. Also it has a much smaller footprint in memory and on disk than any other browser (Save IE where most of it is in the OS). As I said I hope this is real world performance enhancing. Also Fx only comes out better in benchies not real world apps. Thats why all the Fx users thought chrome was fast when it was released - had they been using Opera they wouldn't have been so wowed.

lucideer # Monday, August 10, 2009 3:24:08 PM

Opera is still the fastest browser around, but the Sunspider benchmark, while obviously completely irrelevant in the "real" world, has become a de-facto statistic for blogs and those of influence to quote when comparing browsers. So targeting it is good for marketing, which is inevitably good for Opera users.

Anonymous # Friday, August 14, 2009 9:09:38 AM

Anonymous writes: "They said, almost 6 months ago, that it WAS between 2.5 and 50 times faster in SunSpider. In initial tests back then." When we worked on ff 3.5 the initial tests yielded much better results

Keldian.-Keldian # Monday, August 17, 2009 1:17:35 AM

Good info to read. Wish you the best, Opera devs.

Anonymous # Tuesday, August 18, 2009 11:42:46 AM

Anonymous writes: "When we worked on ff 3.5 the initial tests yielded much better results" Yeah, and it ended up sucking. At least Opera knows how to deliver on performance.

Anonymous # Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:27:35 AM

Anonymous writes: Thank you Opera team for continuing to develop great software! =) Keep up the good work!

Anonymous # Sunday, September 6, 2009 10:04:17 AM

Guti writes: Any update about it? Can't wait for a release in the Opera Desktop Team blog!

Anonymous # Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:34:45 AM

galeh g13 writes: ouw yeaaahh xD

Anonymous # Tuesday, November 17, 2009 11:45:18 AM

Аноним writes: Russian "taracan" sounds cooler to me :). "Taracan" - is a fastest insect in the world.

Anonymous # Saturday, January 16, 2010 11:21:11 AM

pieRr0Ur writes: Even though still in pre-alpha - mine, my 10.5 speed is yet better than the other one (Opera 10.10) installed on my WinXP Home Edition SP3! That's why It's hard to resist not to use 10.5 behind all the crashes it gives me!

Nostradances # Thursday, January 21, 2010 2:10:56 PM

Monikers aside, Opera is still a "peoples browser". (more like the Swiss Army knife of the internet).
Been using it since it's creation, and now it's an addiction. One can imagine how hard it must be to avoid the pre-alpha release; but what a fine way to begin another Decade. Rock em' boys. Proper job....eh?

Anonymous # Wednesday, January 27, 2010 11:45:35 AM

Anonymous writes: Has tested opera 10.5 yesturday, and... i LIKE (and LOVE?) it even more as before! :))))) Keep doing! Speedup even more! :) p.s. Before i always was BIG fan of Opera... :)

Anonymous # Friday, February 5, 2010 10:05:36 AM

Anonymous writes: The new java script engine will be very welcome! I use yahoo webmail and i do find that opera 10.10 is a little sluggish with it. Annoyingly so at times. Speed is definitly what we want. Combined with great features of course! Opera is still the best.

Haavardhaavard # Friday, February 5, 2010 11:31:10 AM

Carakan is already available in 10.50.

Mike manish2479 # Friday, November 5, 2010 4:02:12 PM

Hi

I was using this javascript http://lexi.ucoz.ru/userjs/show-ip.js to get IP on opera but it's not working on newer version of opera from v10.20 of Opera. It works in lower version than v10.20.

Any input will be helpful to get this script working.