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WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#271

Post by tom_mellior »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #253
tom_mellior wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I see that there is an issue there, but the discussion is invisible. Hidden. Locked.

> invisible. Hidden It's not. It's just that there are no other posts on that issue. GitHub does not have a way to make an issue visible to the public but hide all discussion on it. > Locked That's not the same thing. Locked just means you can't add your own comments, not that you can't see comments from other users.

Ah ok, thanks. That there is no discussion is even more disappointing.

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#272

Post by dvddgld »

colordrops wrote: post #257
zanny wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will it even by worth it beyond a few specific applications? I'm sure if you sampled all developers the number that would say Javascript is their favorite programming language would be in a substantial minority. So if it makes it easier for developers to write client side code in their preferred language its worth it. That being said, I'm worried a bit. Javascript being awful has traditionally kept developers doing…

> I'm sure if you sampled all developers the number that would say Javascript is their favorite programming language would be in a substantial minority. I wouldn't be so sure of that.

Agreed, it'd likely be one of the largest shares

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#273

Post by steveklabnik »

themihai wrote: post #183
steveklabnik wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of processing that doesn't inherently need the DOM, and there's also server-side stuff as well. I think you'd be surprised!

Yeah, but WASM was supposed to democratise the web development not to do just server-side stuff. Without DOM and Web APIs you can't do much Web related.

There's tons of tooling written in JS for JS that doesn't need DOM access to work, for example.

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#274

Post by tree_of_item »

austincheney wrote: post #237
stcredzero wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JS is a language and not a bytecode media. That's an arbitrary distinction that's driven by developer group politics, not a meaningful technical distinction. (Much like the old Rubyist, "It's an interpreter, not a VM.") Machine languages were originally intended to be used by human beings, as were punch cards and assembly language. There's no reason why a person couldn't program in bytecode. In fact, to implement cer…

> That's an arbitrary distinction that's driven by developer group politics Not at all. JavaScript is a textual language defined by a specification. Modern JavaScript does have a bytecode, but it is completely proprietary to the respective JIT compiler interpreting the code and utterly unrelated to the language's specification. > There's no reason why a person couldn't program in bytecode. True, but that isn't this d…

The point is that a "textual language defined by a specification" can serve the exact same purpose that a bytecode does. And JavaScript is very much on this path.

That is this discussion, because the fact that people program directly in JavaScript does not prevent it from being in the same class of things as a bytecode.

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#275

Post by steveklabnik »

md224 wrote: post #185
KeitIG wrote: post #34

A good occasion to watch Gary Bernhardt's talk "The Birth & Death of JavaScript" [0] again, where he talks about the precursor of WebAssembly: asm.js and the future implication it "could" have in the future in a really humorous way. A few years old but still relevant. You want Gimp for Windows running in Firefox for Linux running in Chrome for Mac? Yeah sure. [0] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and…

My CS background is a bit weak... is the hypothetical Metal architecture he describes supposed to be satire or actually a good idea?

Some say that joking is a socially acceptable way to say socially unacceptable ideas.

I think it's a great idea, though many disagree. It's basically ChromeOS but to the next level.

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#277

Post by pavlov »

madeofpalk wrote: post #270
pavlov wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's doable if you already have a large team of experienced web engine development experts, a multi-million budget and years to spend on just planning. Implementing an open standard shouldn't be like this. Even proprietary formats like PDF are much simpler to implement than CSS.

It's not doable, part from when it is. 'Open standard' has nothing about something being simple and straight forward. What CSS is trying to do is complicated because of a whole bunch of pragmatic reasons. Last time a browser tried to 'move things forward', ngate aptly summed it up as Google breaks shit instead of doing anything right, as usual. Hackernews is instantly pissed off that it is even possible to question t…

I never claimed that the existing browser vendors can’t do it incrementally — they certainly can. What I wrote was: “... there's not going to be another web browser engine created by an independent party.”

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#278

Post by woah »

irrational wrote: post #215
pavlov wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is CSS. Implementing a compliant render engine is nearly impossible, as the spec keeps ballooning and the combinations of inconsistencies and incompatibilities between properties explode. Check out the size of the latest edition of the book "CSS: The Definitive Guide" : https://twitter.com/meyerweb/status/929097712754098181 Until CSS is replaced by a sane layout system, there's not going to be anothe…

Isn't Grid and Flexbox supposed to be that sane layout system? At least that's what I've heard from those who have used them.

React Native has what seems like a pretty sane css-like layout system. Maybe this could become the basis for a "css-light" standard that could gradually replace the existing css, and offer much faster performance for website authors who opt in.

Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers

#280

Post by om2 »

Klathmon wrote: post #119
clouddrover wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari does on iOS 11: https://webkit.org/blog/7956/new-webkit-features-in-safari-1... https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/Gen...

But does a WebView? I recently discovered that while Safari supports WebRTC, a "WebView" or a safari view that is added to the home screen does not.

WKWebView and SFSafariViewController both support Web Assembly in iOS 11.
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