61–70 of 287 posts
The web is fascinating: we started with a seemingly insane proposition that we could let anyone run complex programs on your machine without causing profound security issues. And it turned out that this was insane: we endured 20 years of serious browser security bugs caused chiefly by JavaScript. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but it was also crazy. And now that we're getting close to have the right design princi…
The web is fascinating: we started with a seemingly insane proposition that we could let anyone run complex programs on your machine without causing profound security issues. And it turned out that this was insane: we endured 20 years of serious browser security bugs caused chiefly by JavaScript. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but it was also crazy. And now that we're getting close to have the right design princi…
WASM with DOM support will be great. Unfortunately it will also be great for obfuscation and malware.
This is the right direction. Another important bit I think it’s the GC integration. Many languages such Go, C# don’t do well on wasm due the GC. They have to ship a GC as well due the lack of various GC features(I.e interior pointers)
The web is fascinating: we started with a seemingly insane proposition that we could let anyone run complex programs on your machine without causing profound security issues. And it turned out that this was insane: we endured 20 years of serious browser security bugs caused chiefly by JavaScript. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but it was also crazy. And now that we're getting close to have the right design princi…
What makes WASM execution riskier than JS?
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no, it didn't mean that, because the overhead is not a deal breaker:
1) you don't have to do the glue code (libs can do it for you)
2) there's overhead due to glue, but the overhead is so small that WASM web frameworks easily can compete with fast JS frameworks in DOM heavy scenarios.
Source: Analysis of the creator of Leptos (a web framework based on WASM): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KtotxNAwME
It's still not a great idea IMHO ;) (there was also some more recent discussion in here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47295837 ) E.g. it feels like a lot of over-engineering just to get 2x faster string marshalling, and this is only important for exactly one use case: for creating a 1:1 mapping of the DOM API to WASM. Most other web APIs are by far not as 'granular' and string heavy as the DOM. E.g. if I main…
With Google now pushing developer certification, Android and iOS practically being mandatory for certain basic functions like accessing your bank or certain government services, Webassembly would make web apps first class citizens that aren't subject to mobile operating system lockdown. Being able to complete on efficiency with native apps is an incredible example of purposeful vision driving a significant standard,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes WASM execution riskier than JS?
Novelty - JS has had more time and effort spent in hardening it, across the browsers, WASM isn't as thoroughly battle-tested, so there will be novel attacks and exploits.
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And games, which the web is now a viable platform for a huge range of them, albeit not the top of the range, AAA and all that (yet?). Also some new graphical editors taking advantage of it, probably Figma being the most famous example so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes WASM execution riskier than JS?
Novelty - JS has had more time and effort spent in hardening it, across the browsers, WASM isn't as thoroughly battle-tested, so there will be novel attacks and exploits.