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WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

w3.org

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Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#101

Post by steveklabnik »

infogulch wrote: post #94
thaumasiotes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Markdown you can generally produce a single block quote with paragraph breaks by including quoted empty lines: > Paragraph 1 > > Paragraph 2 Whereas you'd get two sequential quote blocks by using an unquoted empty line: > Quote 1 > Quote 2

That doesn't work here > because if you have multiple lines not separated by an empty line, > > even with a "quoted" extra line, it's not formatted on hn as such, and everything collapses into a single line.

Hacker News comments are not Markdown.

https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#102

Post by woodrowbarlow »

somurzakov wrote: post #61
woodrowbarlow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the backend could compile to wasm as well.

and what is the profit in compiling C/C++/Rust into wasm, instead of native binary code?

well this thread was about wasm vs java, but...

advantages: sandbox, portability

disadvantages: performance, platform integration

nobody's saying that server-side wasm will be universally the right choice.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#103

Post by BlueTemplar »

jhoechtl wrote: post #18
52-6F-62 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then if all web apps move to a canvas-painted UI with all the code in web assembly then there will be a major accessibility problem. Unless screen readers can now dive down into the canvas layer?

You raised a very valid point here. How much difference will be between a canvas-painted web-app and a native Windows application? The line woll get increasingly blurry.

The "web" app will have worse performance.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#104

Post by h8hawk »

janpot wrote: post #17
LessDmesg wrote: post #15

Now if only we get a good web-oriented Python with a WASM backend, we'll finally be able to throw Javascript where it belongs: into the dustbin of history.

Honest question, in what sense is python a so much better choice for web development? syntax? subjective, and it would also mean all C-likes belong in the dustbin. performance? Why would python, as a language, be significantly more performant? It's just as dynamic. ecosystem? JS community is huge, JS package managers are huge (even though not flawless, but nothing their python counterparts do better) I mean I can sur…

I think almost any thing is better than js. At least it is popular due to its actual developer's. People use it because they like it and its ecosystem was grown by them, not force of a dumb decision in 90's or company backup. Both performance and ecosystem are not characteristics of language. they are due to being the only language is being supported in browser. (hint: I won't use python for web)

Also comparing languages based on syntax and ecosystem is not very clever idea.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#105

Post by weberc2 »

pteredactyl wrote: post #80

Such hate for JavaScript. To say JS needs to lose for you to win says more about you than it does JS. Just a thought. I see a world where there are many winners and one where WASM and JS and whatever you want can fulfill their need where needed.

This seems like a straw man; I’ve seen relatively little JS hate in this thread. Unless you’re considering WASM’s progress (or existence) to be an attack on JS? I personally don’t see what is wrong with having other choices for web development.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#106

Post by duxup »

diegoperini wrote: post #65
duxup wrote: post #41

I wonder if people think work involving web assembly will coalesce around a few languages over time?

LLVM kinda proved having a common target back-end doesn't kill language diversity, it actually achieves the opposite.

I wonder if web development were to shift dramatically... would it go to largely one or a few languages?

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#107

Post by yazaddaruvala »

somurzakov wrote: post #61
woodrowbarlow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the backend could compile to wasm as well.

and what is the profit in compiling C/C++/Rust into wasm, instead of native binary code?

Better hosting/deploying/debugging/etc because WASM can be hot-loaded and easily embeddable.

e.g. https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare-workers/

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#108

Post by sp332 »

kllrnohj wrote: post #79

Does anyone have any good success stories with WebAssembly in the actual context of using it on the web? That list of testimonials doesn't seem very inspiring as to whether or not the standard has seen actual production usage to justify being a recommended standard...

MESS/MAME can be compiled to WebAssembly now. You can emulate arcade games and whole computer systems in the browser. E.g. https://archive.org/details/win3_TemIM3x (Press the big play button)

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#109

Post by h8hawk »

ww520 wrote: post #82
LessDmesg wrote: post #15

Now if only we get a good web-oriented Python with a WASM backend, we'll finally be able to throw Javascript where it belongs: into the dustbin of history.

I'd pick Javascript over Python for frontend dev in any day. Python can't even do proper lambda.

Just name it! Good luck with that.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#110

Post by keyP »

pteredactyl wrote: post #89
kllrnohj wrote: post #79

Does anyone have any good success stories with WebAssembly in the actual context of using it on the web? That list of testimonials doesn't seem very inspiring as to whether or not the standard has seen actual production usage to justify being a recommended standard...

Good questions. WASM at this point seems more a locus of JS hate than anything practical. To create something cool, novel, and useful should be the goal, not avoid or use a certain language.

I wouldn't say it's hate towards JS but I think the evolution of JS vs the evolution of web and its use cases have not increased at the same velocity, latter being faster. JS has had to have a lot of scaffolding added to increase its use but WASM now comes in with the understanding of the modern requirements. However, I don't think it's either one or the other, it'll depend on the use-case.

I can't imagine JS will go anywhere anytime soon, especially since it still needs to be called from DOM manipulation,but the ability to code a full stack in a single non-JS language and run it at near-native performance is going to be very useful as more apps become web based and complex. Even from a skills point of view, you can now have backend and front-end developers skillsets are slightly more merged so easier to swap around resources.

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