V8 is the JavaScript engine of Google Chrome. It’s also useful as a stand-alone library, for example I use it as the basis for EightPack, a collection of command-line utilities for web-oriented continuous integration tools. Of course, it’s well known that the famous Node.js project leverages V8 for the speed.
If you are an avid follower of V8 development, often you want to try out the same V8 version which is used in a certain release of Google Chrome. How do we find this? It’s actually rather easy. First, look at the releases branches of Chromium Subversion repository, conveniently browseable at src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/releases. Now it’s a matter of checking the right version. At the moment of this writing, my Google Chrome says its at version 17.0.963.46. When viewing the file 17.0.963.46/DEPS (used by Gyp, the build system), you’ll find the link to the right version of V8, i.e. v8.googlecode.com/svn/branches/3.7 revision 10521. This can be cross-referenced in V8 repository: branches/3.7&start=10521.
Easy, isn’t it?