Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#1

Post by syrusakbary » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly
wasmer.io

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#2

Post by syrusakbary » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

Hi HN!

At Wasmer we have been working to enable more use cases for the WebAssembly ecosystem. We believe that Wasm can become the lingua franca for software, and we have started to work towards enabling that: starting with standalone native executables generation from Wasm WASI packages.

Looking forward hearing your thoughts!

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#3

Post by mountainriver » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

Wasmer is one of the projects I’m most excited about right now. It offers such an elegant view on where we could take runtimes

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#4

Post by thepra » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

I guess Blazor WebAssembly based webapps can't be used with this system.

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#5

Post by melony » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

Does Wasm have a universal GUI story outside of the browser?

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#6

Post by dmitrygr » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

History repeats itself yet again. Write-once-run-anywhere,eh? :)

We had a thing for that a while ago, we called it Java. It had a similarly compelling story.

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#7

Post by wizofaus » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

Since when was .lol a top level domain?? Have they just given up now?

(Edit: 7 years now apparently, never seen it before...)

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#8

Post by detaro » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

wizofaus wrote: post #7

Since when was .lol a top level domain?? Have they just given up now? (Edit: 7 years now apparently, never seen it before...)

since 2015 (one of the new-gTLD rounds)

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#9

Post by jeroenhd » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

I like Wasmer for the ability to sandbox executables, because WASM can't do more than some very basic I/O if it ever gets compromised; great for a plugin architecture!

This, however, feels like a newer, inefficient, more limited version of Java JARs or dotnet DLLs. Why not compile into a more optimized bytecode format instead? Pretty sure you can generate a C# binary that compiles into a single platform native executable that includes the framework (and all of your dependencies, I believe?).

Want a cross platform native app that's even faster? Compile for Windows, bundle Wine! Want the limitations of the Javascript framework? Run the Windows executable in a browser through Boxedwine!

Re: Show HN: Create Native Desktop Apps from WebAssembly

#10

Post by intelVISA » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 12:04 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #9

I like Wasmer for the ability to sandbox executables, because WASM can't do more than some very basic I/O if it ever gets compromised; great for a plugin architecture! This, however, feels like a newer, inefficient, more limited version of Java JARs or dotnet DLLs. Why not compile into a more optimized bytecode format instead? Pretty sure you can generate a C# binary that compiles into a single platform native execut…

Love it, and not wrong. Isn't bytecode typically more performant than this approach?