WebAssembly is more than the web
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WebAssembly is more than the web
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Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#2At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago?
I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades.
Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too?
[0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy.
[1] Yes, yes, Smalltalk, too. But Java - AFAIK - was the first language that aimed for platform-independent bytecode + network delivery of code (Applets, Webstart).
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#3At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
You are correct, but this time, all industry leaders cooperate instead of competing: https://webassembly.org/ (see browser support). Also implementation in browsers is different (more "close to the metal" let's say) and the whole web platform has evolved a lot, and that changes a lot of things.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#4At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
I think the large difference here is that the VM for WASM is much thinner.
Java was not then and still isn't today the fastest of languages. I think WASM's model of being a lower level VM is going to produce fantastic results. Heck I "ported" Lua to WASM[1] and it was pretty snappy compared to what I was expecting.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#5At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
You are correct, but this time, all industry leaders cooperate instead of competing: https://webassembly.org/ (see browser support). Also implementation in browsers is different (more "close to the metal" let's say) and the whole web platform has evolved a lot, and that changes a lot of things.
>(more "close to the metal" let's say)
I don't think that's really fair to say at all.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#6At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
I would say a big difference here is that WASM is designed from the ground up for sandboxing, rather than it being added in after the fact like applets.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#7At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
The major difference I'd say is that we're not trying to cram a desktop solution into the browser. Java is great but Java apps are not designed like websites, they are not designed to be downloaded one page at a time and they have totally different security models.
Other things like the browser being able to prewarm the vm and other first class citizen type support will hopefully lead to more success.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#8This is the first time someone explained the value proposition of WebAssembly and I understood it. Now I'm actually intrigued.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#9At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
Java's intent was "write Java code once, run anywhere". The JVM exposes a strict Java-centric view of what it can run, and it can be difficult to run other language environments on top of the JVM reasonably.
Webasm is basically "write any code once, run anywhere". It models a very low-level CPU-like environment that the code fully controls at the byte level, so even runtime language VMs can run in such a model without harsh slowdowns. While this literally offers fewer features than the JVM, it doesn't restrict which features the final runtime can implement.
This of course is all based on the assumption that you have a CPU-level environment that already bootstraps what you need (like C-based garbage collectors running underneath your dynamic language); or that you're running low-level, assembly-style code for speed reasons.
Re: WebAssembly is more than the web
#10At the risk of sounding like an old grumpy guy[0], isn't this kind of what Java[0] set out to achieve some 20 years ago? I am in no position to compare the two by any metric other than age. But I am old enough to appreciate how such ideas tend return every couple of decades. Is this an IT thing, or is this phenomenon known in other areas, too? [0] I am not even that old, and I do my best to not be grumpy. [1] Yes, ye…
That's a completely fair question. I believe it's mainly just that Java bytecode is optimized to run on the JVM whereas WASM is optimized to run on CPUs. https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/960