WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#1

Post by gurjeet » Sat, Nov 15, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

WebAssembly from the Ground Up
wasmgroundup.com

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#2

Post by chasil » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 6:16 AM UTC

I like PHP because it allows access to core system calls on any platform.

I see runtime interpreters as constraining when a system call is needed, but proscribed.

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#3

Post by gurjeet » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

I don't remembering submitting it today; it must be from the second-chance pool. Good to see my submission on the frontpage, though :-)

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#4

Post by gurjeet » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 6:27 AM UTC

gurjeet wrote: post #3

I don't remembering submitting it today; it must be from the second-chance pool. Good to see my submission on the frontpage, though :-)

Yup, as suspected, I had submitted it 5 days ago [1], but here it shows as submitted 2 hours ago. But I don't see it in the second-chance pool [2], perhaps because it has graduated out of there to the frontpage.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=gurjeet [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#5

Post by haykuro » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 6:49 AM UTC

chasil wrote: post #2

I like PHP because it allows access to core system calls on any platform. I see runtime interpreters as constraining when a system call is needed, but proscribed.

You don't want to use PHP (a server-sided language) to solve a client-side problem.

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#6

Post by patrick4urcloud » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 6:53 AM UTC

nice job

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#7

Post by peterangular » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 7:14 AM UTC

haykuro wrote: post #5

chasil wrote: post #2

I like PHP because it allows access to core system calls on any platform. I see runtime interpreters as constraining when a system call is needed, but proscribed.

You don't want to use PHP (a server-sided language) to solve a client-side problem.

PHP devs: "hold my beer."

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#8

Post by skybrian » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 7:15 AM UTC

Is there a Github repo for code associated with this book?

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#9

Post by pdubroy » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 7:20 AM UTC

Hi HN! Co-author of the book here, happy to answer any questions you have.

Beyond the sample chapters which are linked from the landing page, we also have a couple blog posts which may be interesting:

- A WebAssembly Interpreter: https://wasmgroundup.com/blog/wasm-vm-part-1/

- An older blog post, "A WebAssembly compiler that fits in a tweet" (https://wasmgroundup.com/blog/wasm-compiler-in-a-tweet), was also on HN earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42814948

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#10

Post by pdubroy » Fri, Nov 21, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #8

Is there a Github repo for code associated with this book?

Yes, it can all be found here: https://github.com/wasmgroundup/code

Over the course of the book, we also build up a small library for creating Wasm modules and emitting bytecode; that's available as an NPM package (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@wasmgroundup/emit) and the code is here: https://github.com/wasmgroundup/emit