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WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

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Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#51

Post by thaumasiotes »

vanderZwan wrote: post #43
chubot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating what I wrote here [1], Fabrice Bellard wrote JSLinux in 2011, which is a CPU emulator written in JavaScript that runs the Linux kernel (using typed arrays and relying on fast JITs). That's just a way of saying that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (and do so before people who were "predicting" it). If you knew about asm.js and Google's (now abandoned) Nacl and PNacl, there's nothing surp…

> If you knew about [x], there's nothing surprising about [y] You are technically correct, but at the same time I do think this way of framing it is selling Gary Bernhardt a little bit short. There is still an uncanny part in knowing all the right things at the right time to predict the future.

"The future will be just like the past, but with a different name".

I guess it's just as accurate when Gary Bernhardt says it as when everyone else says it. It's not exactly a theme that's gone overlooked before. But still... executing bytecode in the browser goes way, way, way, way back.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#52

Post by dubcanada »

zmzrr wrote: post #46
BoumTAC wrote: post #2

Why does the testimonial contains only Chinese company? I think it's really great but it would be better to have company from all around the world

Would I be reading this if it was only American companies?

No, probably not.

I think it's just a little shocking as it kind of makes it seem like nobody outside of China supports WebAssembly.

I think having a wide variety of companies from open source "pro web" to Google and Alibaba might be better then having a pile of extremely wealthy firewall supporting companies.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#53

Post by tcoff91 »

cjbprime wrote: post #40
kemonocode wrote: post #30

It's really uncanny how Gary Bernhardt predicted it all [0] a few years ago. [0] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

I think we're still waiting for a WASM-only OS, though :)

I think I remember reading something on HN about some kind of tool for running WASM in some kind of kernel module to speed up app performance.

EDIT: here it is: https://medium.com/wasmer/running-webassembly-on-the-kernel-...

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#54

Post by klodolph »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #44
klodolph wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently no path for any of that. No rendering without a DOM, and no opening WASM files by themselves. The same is true for JavaScript... if you open a JavaScript file, you just see the source code. Of course, why not just use a small HTML+JS shim for your WASM?

Because there is value in ditching legacy cruft.

That’s a short-term view. There’s going to be legacy cruft either way. Either we have the existing HTML + JS with WASM alongside it, or we introduce a ton of new APIs to let WASM function by itself.

Using the existing HTML + JS avoids creating as much future legacy cruft.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#55

Post by ShakataGaNai »

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…

Not Op, but I'd like to do python/WASM because I don't do want to do C-Like languages. Sometimes you want to do some light web interactivity without major mental context switching.

For me, personally, it's a lot of effort to switch between languages. So when I'm building a web project and most of it is django/flask/python/etc, but I want something more dynamic than a HTML form post/browser reload... I need to do it in Javascript. Not that I can't javascript, I can, it's just hard to change over and I'm slow to write it. It would be a whole bunch nicer if I could just stay in the python mindset for those small pieces of code.

Do I think python is "better" for the web? No. do I think it's faster? Doubt it.

Do I think it's "better" for my use cases? Yes - And that's the power of WASM. It allows people to do what works for them.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#56

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #13
gnulinux wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in, JS development for browser? You'll still need JS to run WebAssembly in the browser. It'll bury JS in the sense that you are able to develop in any other language like C++, and compile your program to JS+WebAssembly, so you don't need to develop in JS anymore. But JS itself (under the hood) is probably to stay for longer.

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?

> there will be a major accessibility problem

The modern web already burned that bridge and loudly declared that it doesn't give two shits about accessibility. There are plenty of companies that gladly sacrifice accessibility to have "beautiful" interfaces designed by some self-important jackass.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#57

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

lmkg wrote: post #14
spullara wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you mean JavaScript? This will have 0 effect on Java at this point since it isn't used in the browser anymore.

WASM is angling to break out of the web and become a cross-platform runtime. Its main competition for this space is Java.

Show me a WASM VM that approaches the OpenJDK JVM in maturity and capabilities.

Until such a creation comes to be, the OpenJDK JVM will continue to thrive.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#58

Post by LessDmesg »

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…

For one thing, not being broken. Python doesn't have ("1"+1) and similar design flaws, Python doesn't need a new ECMAscript standard every year, Python has figured out modules and classes much earlier, and frankly, Python is what Javascript is only becoming after years of improvement. Really, I don't understand why we and the browser maintainers have to put up with a broken, insane language when there is a similar but much more mature and "done right" one. And as far as ecosystem, Python can kick Javascript's ass if not in quantity (though it's close) then in quality of its userbase for sure. And Python has been used onе the backend much more than JS, so it makes much more sense to unify the language and just use Python for the front-end.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#59

Post by spullara »

lmkg wrote: post #14
spullara wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you mean JavaScript? This will have 0 effect on Java at this point since it isn't used in the browser anymore.

WASM is angling to break out of the web and become a cross-platform runtime. Its main competition for this space is Java.

Without defining a standard set of abstractions around operating system resources it is pretty far from competitive with Java and more closely related to something like LLVM bitcode.

Re: WebAssembly becomes a W3C Recommendation

#60

Post by ConcernedCoder »

BoumTAC wrote: post #2

Why does the testimonial contains only Chinese company? I think it's really great but it would be better to have company from all around the world

That struck me as wierd too, then it got me thinking about the 'great wall' and China's ability to insert tracking ( or other ) JavaScript into a user's session... and then how that's going to be different now in the age of web assembly... I can imagine it would make obfuscation of intent easier for one thing.
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