Hi—I'm Adam Ernst, the iOS-side developer of the Khan app.
Your assessment of the app's hybrid nature, and the performance problems that result, is correct. We know that the performance is subpar, and it wouldn't have been much more work for me to do the rest in native code.
Khan Academy recently hired John Resig, with whom I had the pleasure of working on this app. John is the inventor of jQuery and a core developer on jQuery Mobile. He's amazingly talented and has really pushed the Javascript world ahead.
It's no surprise that John is eager to improve jQuery Mobile, and his work at Khan Academy is a great real-world project on which to use it. John tackled the jQuery Mobile side of the project, and I filled in native code for the parts (like the navigation) that would have been far too slow in Javascript.
I'm sure John will continue optimizing jQuery Mobile to improve its performance. So just stay tuned; the jQuery Mobile project has been moving incredibly fast. And thanks, John, for the opportunity to work with you!
Your assessment of the app's hybrid nature, and the performance problems that result, is correct. We know that the performance is subpar, and it wouldn't have been much more work for me to do the rest in native code.
Khan Academy recently hired John Resig, with whom I had the pleasure of working on this app. John is the inventor of jQuery and a core developer on jQuery Mobile. He's amazingly talented and has really pushed the Javascript world ahead.
It's no surprise that John is eager to improve jQuery Mobile, and his work at Khan Academy is a great real-world project on which to use it. John tackled the jQuery Mobile side of the project, and I filled in native code for the parts (like the navigation) that would have been far too slow in Javascript.
I'm sure John will continue optimizing jQuery Mobile to improve its performance. So just stay tuned; the jQuery Mobile project has been moving incredibly fast. And thanks, John, for the opportunity to work with you!