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WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

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Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#4

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

If Adobe Flash was a failure, I only hope I can fail as well and as strongly in my life...

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#5

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

PNaCl is cancer to the web and requires Google Spyware.

No thanks.

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#6

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

If Adobe Flash was a failure, I only hope I can fail as well and as strongly in my life...

Yeah, I was referring to pnacl (as in Portable Native Client), but that is a very good point about a technology that is obviously still going strong all these years later.

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#7

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

Supported by a single browser and based on a single (and the same) vendor's spec, which needlessly duplicates about half a web browser's functionality using a brand new API, and with no support due for other browsers any time soon

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#8
post #5

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

PNaCl is cancer to the web and requires Google Spyware. No thanks.

PNaCl allows me to run vim and python natively in my browser.

Thanks.

(Shout out to my boys, Sam Clegg, Brad Nelson and company!)

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#9
post #7

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

Supported by a single browser and based on a single (and the same) vendor's spec, which needlessly duplicates about half a web browser's functionality using a brand new API, and with no support due for other browsers any time soon

False.

From the Native Client wikipedia page:

As of 13 May 2010, Google's open source browser, Chromium, was the only web browser to utilize the new browser plug-in model.[28] Mozilla has announced that they are "not interested in or working on Pepper at this time."[29] As of 2015, Pepper is supported by Chrome, Chromium and Opera.

Re: WebAssembly: a binary format for the web

#10

"Why should WebAssembly succeed where previous attempts (such as Adobe Flash and Google Portable Native Client) have failed?" Failed???? Excuse me, I haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the awesomeness that is pnacl in my own project!

The failure of pnacl isn't primarily technical, it's political. I think the core tech (verifiable secure native code) is awesome. Many people in high places in non-Google browsers object to pnacl on several fronts. The crux of which seems to be that there is not a smooth transition story from JS->PNaCL. Getting JS and PNaCL to inter-operate, share implementation/memory/APIs is a problem. A bigger problem is the need to get all of the browser vendors (including IE and Safari) in agreement and on board synchronously to avoid years of "works only in Chrome and X".

Asm.js "cheated" by creating a path forward that did not require consensus. Mozilla used it to innovate without needing to argue with anyone else. For other vendors, asm.js would technically "work" without other vendors putting in any technical or political investment. But, the hook was that if they didn't get on board eventually, their browsers would start to look bad if they ran asm.js sites poorly.

WebAssembly is the outcome of Mozilla's trick. Now that all of the vendors have slowly become convinced over a period of years that there is a smooth, gradual path forward over the next several years that does not involve any technical or political chasms to cross, they are starting to work together to make it happen.

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