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WebAssembly from the Ground Up

wasmgroundup.com

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Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#11

Post by dboon »

pdubroy wrote: post #9

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 e…

It looks good! I may pick up a copy. Besides the convenience, why do you recommend your book over reading the WASM spec as you implement your basic compiler? I find that WASM has a beautifully readable spec. One of its best features!

Either way, I’ll likely buy a copy to support the hard work on a piece of tech that I am very fond of

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#12

Post by dmpk2k »

dboon wrote: post #11
pdubroy wrote: post #9

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 e…

It looks good! I may pick up a copy. Besides the convenience, why do you recommend your book over reading the WASM spec as you implement your basic compiler? I find that WASM has a beautifully readable spec. One of its best features! Either way, I’ll likely buy a copy to support the hard work on a piece of tech that I am very fond of

Doing is a far better way to learn than just reading.

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#13

Post by pdubroy »

dboon wrote: post #11
pdubroy wrote: post #9

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 e…

It looks good! I may pick up a copy. Besides the convenience, why do you recommend your book over reading the WASM spec as you implement your basic compiler? I find that WASM has a beautifully readable spec. One of its best features! Either way, I’ll likely buy a copy to support the hard work on a piece of tech that I am very fond of

Thank you!

I would 100% agree that the spec is quite readable. At the top of our Minimum Viable Compiler chapter, we say:

> The binary module format is defined in the WebAssembly Core Specification. You’ll notice that we back up many of our explanations with reference to the relevant part of the spec. One of our goals with this book is to convince you that the spec is a valuable resource that’s worth getting familiar with.

I think the spec is great as reference material, but we wrote the book to be more of a tutorial. We've talked to many people who say they've looked at the spec, but find it too overwhelming. For those people, we hope the book provides a good structure that ultimately helps them become comfortable with the spec!

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#14

Post by boomskats »

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.

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

Lots of people _love_ PHP precisely because of the size of its attack surface.

Do you have any examples of something you've built in PHP which benefitted from direct syscall access?

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#16

Post by pdubroy »

kyranjamie wrote: post #15

Great work, would love to learn more about Wasm. I can't help but notice that in the editor screenshots there's type information in *.js files.

Ah, good catch! I see them in one of the screenshots. Those are just inlay hints, they're not in the source code. (The editor is https://zed.dev)

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#17

Post by dilawar »

boomskats wrote: post #14
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.

> I like PHP because it allows access to core system calls on any platform. Lots of people _love_ PHP precisely because of the size of its attack surface. Do you have any examples of something you've built in PHP which benefitted from direct syscall access?

I keep hearing about this. I occasionally use PHP8 and so far I'm pretty happy with it. Is there any resource that teaches about security issues with modern PHP (version 8.x)?

Re: WebAssembly from the Ground Up

#20

Post by AndruLuvisi »

pdubroy wrote: post #9

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 e…

Does it cover tail calls?
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