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Wasmer 1.0

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Re: Wasmer 1.0

#161

Post by pjmlp »

tasogare wrote: post #77
josephg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big thing the web provides a standard way to do distribution. Unlike JVM apps, I don’t need to install Gmail to use it on my computer.

Biaised reasoning: a JVM app requires the JVM and and a web app requires a browser. None of those app are executable y themselves. The only difference is that one of those runtimes is shipped in most OSes (the browser) while the other is not.

Except the little detail that people keep forgetting, Java also has toolchains that compile to native code for about two decades now.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#162

Post by sagichmal »

pjmlp wrote: post #134
sagichmal wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasm is structurally similar to those things, yes, but is so much faster that it is actually categorically different.

Of course it is so much faster, it does almost nothing.

I hope your cynicism is a force for good in your life.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#163

Post by devwastaken »

kaba0 wrote: post #100
devwastaken wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome impliments the necessary features for wasm and webgl. Here's a test: checkaux.github.io Mobile firefox lacks simd, i haven't been able to get its shared memory to work on a local or deployed environment because of bugs in what it thinks is a 'secure context' Desktop and mobile Firefox does not support OffscreenCanvas without turning on flags. It's been years since this was meant to be made. Therefore you canno…

Then there is no point in having a browser platform, because we are back where we started from. Then why don’t we simply run JVM apps, there are at least a handful of implementations, and it has at least a decent GUI (half joking here). But really, the JVM is where WASM may be several years later.

VM's are not all the same, and a VM does not at all guarantee security.

The JVM is not designed to run arbitrary code and/or is not as well designed to do it as Javascript or Wasm is.

If it were as simple as plug JVM into browser it would be done. However it's not, because the memory and execution safety measures are better in Javascript and Wasm.

Wasm should actually have better isolation than JS.

If you want to know the details go read the spec and look at the implimentations.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#164

Post by josephg »

pjmlp wrote: post #160
josephg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right! And despite that, it loads in seconds. Traction would be very different if people had to install facebook on their computers to try it out! "Oh yeah its this cool social network.. just download - no, not the portable executable version... yeah, its 300 megs... Then you need to click it to install it"

Seconds? It can be minutes depending on where one is located on the globe. Not everyone is luckily at home using broadband connections with flat rate.

Sure; but people without a broadband connection will have even more trouble with an installed application. They're pretty consistently bigger.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#165

Post by pjmlp »

josephg wrote: post #164
pjmlp wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconds? It can be minutes depending on where one is located on the globe. Not everyone is luckily at home using broadband connections with flat rate.

Sure; but people without a broadband connection will have even more trouble with an installed application. They're pretty consistently bigger.

Native applications can be distributed by other means, and keep being installed after the owning company is long gone.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#166

Post by pjmlp »

sagichmal wrote: post #162
pjmlp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is so much faster, it does almost nothing.

I hope your cynicism is a force for good in your life.

Indeed, it helps me to stay away from hype tech until it finally settles mainstream adoption.

The good part is that I save lots of failed projects when that isn't the case, and get consulting gigs to port back into what everyone keeps using.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#167

Post by kaba0 »

devwastaken wrote: post #163
kaba0 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there is no point in having a browser platform, because we are back where we started from. Then why don’t we simply run JVM apps, there are at least a handful of implementations, and it has at least a decent GUI (half joking here). But really, the JVM is where WASM may be several years later.

VM's are not all the same, and a VM does not at all guarantee security. The JVM is not designed to run arbitrary code and/or is not as well designed to do it as Javascript or Wasm is. If it were as simple as plug JVM into browser it would be done. However it's not, because the memory and execution safety measures are better in Javascript and Wasm. Wasm should actually have better isolation than JS. If you want to kno…

Java Applets were a security risk, but it was decades ago. Modern JVM has many options to sandbox a running app.

But it seems that WASM tries to be a mininal CPU target instead, which is questionable - I can’t wait seeing memory errors (even if only inside a single webpage) on the web. With the good quality GCs available with JS, but even more so on JVM, I would say that running system languages should not be the point.

Re: Wasmer 1.0

#168

Post by josephg »

KronisLV wrote: post #141
charrondev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed a step: - click a URL to download an installer. - run the installer that has access to large portions of your system (or if it’s an older windows program probably needs to be run as an administrator so it can add an auto updated or some nonsense like that). - run your program.

I think this is mostly a problem with how the modern operating systems work. Your point is still definitely valid for the real world consequences of this, but i think that theoretically things could be way more simpler. 1.) Click "download" to get a piece of software you need (a static executable) 2.) Put said piece of software in a folder called "/apps/$APP_NAME" 3.) Run said software and have it persist all of its…

Yeah this is my point too! Modern operating systems are made out of code, and I know it sounds weird but we can change them!

Ideally I'd like applications to work the same way websites do. I want to be able to open an application directly from its URL, and it should download and run a contained wasm pack file in a sandbox. The app should then be cached locally - maybe with some ability to pin it to my start menu (and pin the cache entry).

The app should be given some access to a rendering context (with fonts, sound, etc) and some limited storage. And not much else by default - though the user should be able to bless the application to access other files on the filesystem. There's a huge laundry list of APIs the apps will need eventually - and thats going to be a lot of work and I have no idea who'd fund something like that. But it'd be fantastic if we could pull it off.

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