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WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

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Re: WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

#35
Yawn.

It isn't open source. It has a name, WebContainers, that implies it's based on the web, but it's designed around Node.js which isn't built on browser technologies as much as something like Skypack or Deno.

It also seems like it's going to be a memory, disk, and CPU hog, and that it's going to be pretty complex. I like where Skypack is headed and this seems like the opposite direction.

It's pretty cool but it seems like they're trying to create a lot of hype around it.

Re: WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

#36

Yawn. It isn't open source. It has a name, WebContainers, that implies it's based on the web, but it's designed around Node.js which isn't built on browser technologies as much as something like Skypack or Deno. It also seems like it's going to be a memory, disk, and CPU hog, and that it's going to be pretty complex. I like where Skypack is headed and this seems like the opposite direction. It's pretty cool but it se…

Soothe your heart

Re: WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

#37
The future is going to be wild. You could bundle V8 compiled to WASM with a graphics toolkit that uses a syscall like interface to access a canvas backed by WebGPU?

At that point you could replace the browser with ZINE (Zine is not Electron) and run webapps natively just how WINE works.

Re: WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

#39

totally lost newbie here: but what is the difference between running javascript on the browser and running node.js on the browser?

basically node exposes all these other APIs like reading a file from disk. Browser also has APIs like detecting when the page is fully loaded that wouldn't be available on Node. What JavaScript syntax is supported can also vary between Node and browsers.

Re: WebContainers: Run Node.js natively in the browser

#40

totally lost newbie here: but what is the difference between running javascript on the browser and running node.js on the browser?

This is going full inception mode. Nodejs is compiled to wasm (like assembly for your browser), and then loaded inside the browser, which can then run javascript.

So a full JS engine is loaded, completely separate from the built-in one.

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