Google previews Native Client SDK

Google has announced the availability of a developer preview of its Native Client software development kit (SDK). According to Google Senior Software Engineer David Springer, the Native Client SDK is "an important first step in making Native Client more accessible as a tool for developing real web applications." The Native Client system is designed to give web applications access to the client processor's full performance, while maintaining browser neutrality, operating system portability and security. Native clients run substantially faster than, for example, standard JavaScript or Flash applications.

Unlike the research version of Native Client released a year ago that was "big and cumbersome to use", the Native Client SDK preview includes the all the basics developers need to get started writing applications "in minutes". The SDK includes a GCC-based compiler for creating x86-32 or x86-64 binaries from C or C++ source code, ports of popular open source projects, such as zlib, Lua, and libjpeg, and a several samples to help developers start with the NPAPI Pepper Extensions. The developers say that they will be "updating the SDK rapidly in the next few months" and encourage developers that build useful libraries to considering submitting a patch to the SDK packages directory.

More details about the Native Client SDK developer preview, including an introduction video, can be found in a post on the Chromium Blog. The Native Client SDK early preview is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Google Code and is released under a BSD License. Developers will also need a recent build of Chromium with the --enable-nacl command-line flag to test samples and their applications.

See also:

• Google's Native Client goes ARM and beyond, a report from The H.
• Chrome adds Native Client technology, a report from The H.
• Google announces winner of the Native Client Security Contest, a report from The H.

(crve)