For those in the know, what doors is web assembly expected to open? Better cross platform platforms via a browser wrap? Will new types of browser applications be possible that aren't now in JS only world? What are they?
WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
31–40 of 346 posts
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some clear and defining differences between Java applets and webassembly. The core problems with Java were that the security sucked, and that applets were non-native and didn't use the dom. I doubt there is any desire in web developers to overuse canvasses and do layout in wasm, and the security model should hopefully be as successful as JS's has been over the years.
> The core problems with Java were that the security sucked The core problem with Java applets was that they were Java applets An option to keep the source of the web app closed will fragment the web dev community yet again.
I don’t think there is a single web site with human readable javascript on the web anymore.
With all the bundlers and minifiers manglers etc, delivered js is already as closed as a wasm binary would be.
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
In order to port other languages (Haskell, Go, Python) to target WASM, we definitely need the possibility of writing a GC in WASM. But to build an efficient GC, we need multithreading and synchronization/memory barrier primitives.
Multi threading brings in all kinds of security issues
even in the very sandboxed context of WebAssembly?
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#34A 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-death...
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#35Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The core problems with Java were that the security sucked The core problem with Java applets was that they were Java applets An option to keep the source of the web app closed will fragment the web dev community yet again.
I don’t think there is a single web site with human readable javascript on the web anymore. With all the bundlers and minifiers manglers etc, delivered js is already as closed as a wasm binary would be.
> I don’t think there is a single web site with human readable javascript on the web anymore.
Meaningless hyperbole - there are plenty. You're posting on one right now.
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#37did they improve external stacktrace support? the last time I checked debugging was imposible due to bad stacktraces.
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Seriously JS should not be the lingua franca of the web But neither should this. Really, keep your code off my computer as much as possible.
But what is a computer for if not running other people's code? I can't imagine there are many people in this world who have a computer with more than even 1% their own code running on it.
Red herring. People install or explicitly download code they want to run. The general public doesn't even realize that most web pages are full of code (js not html) and most developers have gotten so used to it they feel entitled. The goal should be to try harder to use less code, not enable native execution. I understand, engineers like to think about what is possible (wouldn't it be cool if..!) but sometime they need to check their ego and consider context.
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#39For those in the know, what doors is web assembly expected to open? Better cross platform platforms via a browser wrap? Will new types of browser applications be possible that aren't now in JS only world? What are they?
Expect every language out there to have a WebAssembly implementation, including Flash.
Re: WebAssembly support now shipping in all major browsers
#40Great, time to port SWF to WebAssembly.