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Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

tomassetti.me

11–20 of 259 posts

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#11
post #2

I am betting when WebAssembly gets mature all Web sites will look like Flash, just coded on the framework of choice, thus finally making the browser just yet another VM.

With all major browser JIT compiling JavaScript, aren't they already?

No, because it still is the pile of HTML, CSS and JavaScript hacks.

With WebAssembly you can bypass all of it, and do your UI framework in GL, and everything else with native libraries compiled into WebAssembly.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#12
post #2

I am betting when WebAssembly gets mature all Web sites will look like Flash, just coded on the framework of choice, thus finally making the browser just yet another VM.

In the process, specialised web browsers such as browsers for the blind, will be rendered useless.

Probably, or will make use of whatever features the "native" frameworks might support.

Gtk+ and WPF have very good support for people with disabilities.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#13
The toolchain feels pretty clumsy and bloated, there are many intermediary stages that should be done automatically.

I hope better alternatives will quickly become available, or at least some package where you don't to install a thing inside the thing you already downloaded and installed.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#15
> In practical terms, WebAssembly is implemented by browsers’ developers on the back of the existing JavaScript engine.

Isn't this contrary to the whole idea of wasm?

EDIT: this is a completely serious question, I honestly don't understand why this is built into the existing JS engines instead of something separate.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#16
post #8
post #3

We shouldn't. All the nonsense we're trying to cram into the Web is making it harder to justify connecting to it. I long for the days when simple images and text were the norm. Nowadays, I need to have and devote constant system resources to a tracking-blocker, cookie-blocker, an ad-blocker, a script-blocker, a separate javascript-blocker, and a who-knows-what-else-blocker, just to do the things I want to do; let alo…

> I long for the days when simple images and text were the norm. The main issue with the web currently is that tools designed for the purpose of displaying simple images and text, plus a little interactivity, are being stretched to realize complex applications. Powerful on-demand applications on the web are a good thing, and it's a good thing that we're finally getting the tools to build them properly.

We already had them, WebAssembly adds little to Flash, Java applets, Oberon Juice, ActiveX, Silverlight, other than a format that makes all browser vendors happy.

I can easily imagine that Adobe R&D already has a working WebAssembly prototype for Flash.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#18

I can't tell immediately, but is there anything that compiles WASM to something native? As in I'd like to write some WASM and then compile that to a shared library that a C program could load in.

Just write it in Rust and have the compiler emit wasm or a shared library.

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#19
I am still a bit baffled.

I am a TypeScript user and in the article he states:

For instance, instead of compiling TypeScript to JavaScript, its developers could now compile to WebAssembly.

Alright, so I don't need to be a C/C++ dude to get some WebAssembly goodness (maybe some day).

But now with this in my toolbelt. What occurs? What does it mean? If I have a particle simulation in TypeScript on Canvas using Shaders... Now I compile to WebAssembly, but now what? Can I still access Canvas or is Canvas like a 4th dimension? IF I can't use Canvas, how do I render to screen?

Re: Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?

#20
post #19

I am still a bit baffled. I am a TypeScript user and in the article he states: For instance, instead of compiling TypeScript to JavaScript, its developers could now compile to WebAssembly. Alright, so I don't need to be a C/C++ dude to get some WebAssembly goodness (maybe some day). But now with this in my toolbelt. What occurs? What does it mean? If I have a particle simulation in TypeScript on Canvas using Shaders.…

As far as I know it's a bit like marshaling for JavaScript.

In theory, you wouldn't have to parse JavaScript, when delivering WASM, which should lead to faster startup times.

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