Should JavaScript be split into two languages?

Post by itsgabriel » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 10:58 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #87

The proposal was submitted here but didn't get much attention. Are there other threads? Language Evolution: Problems, and What Can We Do About It? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41795190 - Oct 2024 (1 comment) Proposal of JavaScript becoming a compiled language: JS0 and JSSugar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41764825 - Oct 2024 (2 comments)

Post by debugnik » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 11:15 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #162

davexunit wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from https://wingolog.org/archives/2023/10/19/requiem-for-a-strin... We don’t yet have consensus on this proposal in the Wasm standardization group, and we may never reach there, although I think it’s still possible. As I understand them, the objections are two-fold: WebAssembly is an instruction set, like AArch64 or x86. Strings are too high-level, and should be built on top, for example with (array i8). The r…

> Dealing with strings is not fun right now. And dealing with strings isn't fun in many other languages or runtimes or OSes. e.g.1. C# "Strings in .NET are stored using UTF-16 encoding. UTF-8 is the standard for Web protocols and other important libraries. Beginning in C# 11, you can add the u8 suffix to a string literal to specify UTF-8 encoding. UTF-8 literals are stored as ReadOnlySpan objects" - https://learn.mic…

Post by ozim » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 11:30 PM UTC

Timwi wrote: post #116

I would like to see an in-depth treatise explaining why existing bytecode VMs (LLVM, JavaVM and Ecma CLR) were never seriously considered for the world of browsers. These VMs already exist for numerous platforms, have been optimized to death, already have plethoras of languages that compile to them, and beside JavaVM are open source (Ecma CLR exists in the Mono project). I've looked at WebAssembly and I don't underst…

Post by leptons » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 11:30 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #75

xscott wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What parts are not available? WebAssembly can call arbitrary JavaScript through imports. You could literally provide an `eval` function if you were motivated to.

direct access to the DOM for example without having to go through the javascript host, which is slow and makes DOM intensive applications impractical

Post by xscott » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 11:38 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #172

xscott wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's already solved from day one and people keep repeating that it's a problem anyways. Anything you can do in JavaScript, including access to the DOM, can be put into a JavaScript function. You can import that function into a WebAssembly Module, and you can use WebAssembly Memory to transfer large or complicated data as an efficient side channel. It all works.

Could you link an ergonomic example? I have cemented in my memory that DOM access in WebAssembly is not trivial and I suspect others too. This is what StackOverflow tells me (2020): > Unfortunately, the DOM can only be accessed within the browser's main JavaScript thread. Service Workers, Web Workers, and Web Assembly modules would not have DOM access. The closest manipulation you'll get from WASM is to manipulate st…

    Not that hard 
     
     
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => { 
        /* Compile this module with wat2wasm to make the binary below: 
     
            (module 
                (import "env" "easy" (func $easy (param i32))) 
                (func $run (param) (result) 
                    (call $easy (i32.const 123)) 
                    (call $easy (i32.const 456)) 
                ) 
                (memory $mem 1) 
                (export "run" (func $run)) 
                (export "mem" (memory $mem))  
            ) 
        */ 
     
        const binary = new Uint8Array([ 
              0,   97,  115,  109,    1,    0,    0,    0,   
              1,    8,    2,   96,    1,  127,    0,   96, 
              0,    0,    2,   12,    1,    3,  101,  110,  
            118,    4,  101,   97,  115,  121,    0,    0,  
              3,    2,    1,    1,    5,    3,    1,    0, 
              1,    7,   13,    2,    3,  114,  117,  110, 
              0,    1,    3,  109,  101,  109,    2,    0, 
             10,   14,    1,   12,    0,   65,  251,    0,  
             16,    0,   65,  200,    3,   16,    0,   11,   
        ]); 
     
        const imports = { 
            easy(arg) { 
                const div = document.createElement("div"); 
                div.textContent = "DOM this: " + String(arg); 
                document.body.appendChild(div); 
            } 
        }; 
     
        const module = new WebAssembly.Module(binary);  
        const instance = new WebAssembly.Instance(module, { env: imports });  
        instance.exports.run(); 
    });