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WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

developer.chrome.com

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Re: WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

#12

Post by awongh »

linuxontheweb wrote: post #10
mdhb wrote: post #2

This starts to open a lot of very interesting new doors for web development in general. JavaScript is suddenly no longer the only real game in town it seems. I mean sure WASM has allowed C, C++ and Rust to run on the web for awhile now but they aren’t typically languages that web developers tend to have a lot of knowledge of or interest in learning. But Dart, Kotlin and Java for example, they very much are viable rep…

I don't see the "binaryification" of the web platform happening any time soon (if ever). The web is (and should remain) fundamentally about the transmission of documents. Javascript+DOM allows for the dynamic updating of said documents, and this is what the main thread (asynchronous event loop) is all about. For all "heavy lifting," the logic should go into worker threads, where there isn't any DOM access anyway. I t…

I like the idea of the web / js / DOM being for documents, but if you look at all the new browser javascript APIs it’s clear we’re constantly moving further and further away from documents. Once developers have all these tools available they build things and the cycle continues towards what seems like a pretty complete application runtime environment within the browser.

Re: WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

#13

Post by pjmlp »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #11

Maybe I'm old but, we already had this... it was called the tag and it let you embed Java applets. We also had Java Web Start. I feel like this solution in superior to both those things but it still feels like a step backwards.

We basically took a 10 years delay to get back the productive plugin based frameworks from 2010.

Re: WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

#14

Post by pjmlp »

menaerus wrote: post #9
mdhb wrote: post #2

This starts to open a lot of very interesting new doors for web development in general. JavaScript is suddenly no longer the only real game in town it seems. I mean sure WASM has allowed C, C++ and Rust to run on the web for awhile now but they aren’t typically languages that web developers tend to have a lot of knowledge of or interest in learning. But Dart, Kotlin and Java for example, they very much are viable rep…

> I mean sure WASM has allowed C, C++ and Rust to run on the web for awhile now but they aren’t typically languages that web developers tend to have a lot of knowledge of or interest in learning. I think that main use case is not for the web developers who already know the tech needed for web development but actually vice-versa. E.g. you're a C/C++/Rust developer and you want to expose your product as a browser servi…

Already possible with PNaCL and CrossBridge in 2010, but yeah we needed to have it as a standard and delay everything for a decade.

Re: WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

#17

Post by linuxontheweb »

awongh wrote: post #12
linuxontheweb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the "binaryification" of the web platform happening any time soon (if ever). The web is (and should remain) fundamentally about the transmission of documents. Javascript+DOM allows for the dynamic updating of said documents, and this is what the main thread (asynchronous event loop) is all about. For all "heavy lifting," the logic should go into worker threads, where there isn't any DOM access anyway. I t…

I like the idea of the web / js / DOM being for documents, but if you look at all the new browser javascript APIs it’s clear we’re constantly moving further and further away from documents. Once developers have all these tools available they build things and the cycle continues towards what seems like a pretty complete application runtime environment within the browser.

As long as web applications are necessarily embedded inside of SCRIPT elements, which are themselves necessarily embedded inside of HTML elements, then documents will always have priority over applications.

Re: WasmGC – Run GC languages such as Kotlin, Java in Chrome browser

#18

Post by omginternets »

frou_dh wrote: post #16

OCaml has not one but two WASM/WasmGC targeting efforts in development: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/announcing-the-ocaml-wasm-organi... https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/an-update-from-the-ocaml-wasm-or...

Seems like a bad thing? Why are there two separate workstreams?
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