6 ms·

I want to agree with him, I'd like to see a future where WebAssembly closes the gap between native apps and the web. For better or worse browsers are the new OS

by vruiz 11y ago

I want to agree with him, I'd like to see a future where WebAssembly closes the gap between native apps and the web. For better or worse browsers are the new OSes, and I dream of a future were all vendors come up with the equivalent of a POSIX standard where any web application can access all (or a wide common subset) of any device's capabilities, from the filesystem to native UI elements.

aidanhs 11y ago
Your comment reminded me of this highly entertaining talk - https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death... Although tongue in cheek, I think it gives some food for thought. I feel like WebAssembly is to asm.js what the modern JS profession is to old follow-your-cursor effect on webpages - it becomes something to take seriously and use, and having done a bunch of porting things with Emscripten the idea of a browser within a browser doesn't sound as crazy as it used to!
- jerf 11y ago
  To be honest, WebAssembly isn't really javascript anymore. asm.js was, albeit only sorta-kinda-just-barely (but in an important way), but WebAssembly isn't. There's a reasonable case to be made that in 20 years "everything" will be WebAssembly, but we won't be calling it Javascript, thinking of it like Javascript, or using it like Javascript. In the long term, this is the death knell for Javascript-as-the-only-choice. Javascript will live on, but when left to fend for itself on its own merits, it's just another 1990s-style dynamic scripting language with little to particularly recommend it over all the other 1990s-style dynamic scripting languages. But Javascript programmers need not fear this... it will be a very long, gradual transition. You'll have abundant time to make adjustments if you need to, and should you not want to, there will still be Javascript jobs for a very long time.
  - Klathmon 11y ago
    You act like JavaScript's only upside is the fact that it's required in the browser. IME the opposite is true. I'm seeing companies flock to it outside of browser contexts in areas where "code reuse" or "isometric/universal" style programs aren't even possible.
    - jerf 11y ago
      It's not that it's the only upside. It's that once out of the browser, it isn't really a standout language. For instance, if you're going to have a "fair fight" out there, one can't help but notice that Python already has everything that we're standing around waiting for in ES6, plus the next couple of iterations. And that's just Python. You should also check into Perl, Ruby, Lua, and PHP, and that's without straying even a little outside of the "1990s dynamic scripting language" field, to say nothing of what you can find if you leave that behind. It just isn't that impressive of a language once you remove the browser prop. It isn't necessarily bad, or at least no worse than some other popular languages as well, but there's nothing uniquely good about it in the greater language landscape. To be honest, anyone who thinks that Javascript does have some sort of unique advantage needs to get out more and learn a few more languages. Even Python, which you'll find goes very quickly if you already know JS. Javascript is very, very not special. Again, since people seem to confuse these things, that does not make it bad, but it's very not special. Very boring, middle-of-the-road scripting lanugage that is, if anything, well behind the other ones in features because of its multihead, no-leader-in-practice development model.
      - Klathmon 11y ago
        But JS isn't just a "worse python" either. I've gotten around when it comes to languages, from business-basic to c++ to go to python, php, ruby, js, lua, and lisp. Having spent a non-trivial amount of time in each, JS has by far one of the best ecosystems i've ever seen. See, I hate talking about languages because it's hard to define what a language even is. Is it purely the syntax? Is it syntax+standard library? Or is it the whole set of syntax+libraries+ecosystem+idioms? From a purely syntax point of view, js is lacking some things and while they are getting fixed, it's taking longer than most would like. And i agree that in this aspect js is currently "mediocre" at best. From a "whole ecosystem" point of view, js is wonderful. It's fast, secure enough to give arbitrary code from anyone in a browser, has a stupidly huge set of libraries, an "idiomatic" style which works very well for some problems, and it's almost literally everywhere and on everything, has multiple competing implementations that helps drive performance and reduce bugs. Yeah, it's got it's quirks (and in JS's case, a lot of them), but every language it's age and older does. Now if there was some way to magically take all of the "other" parts from js and apply them to another language, you'd have an overnight success, but the fact is that the language syntax is such a small part of what a language truly is.
serge2k 11y ago
Hey, I've got an idea. How about we just implement this POSIX like standard at the OS layer. We can call it POSIX.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  Build some nice sandboxed hypermedia-application APIs into POSIX and get them adopted all over, and then sure, we can talk!
- mindcrime 11y ago
  It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. This whole trend of making the web browser a poor man's OS is definitely a bit hinky. I mean, how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. Just to play Devil's Advocate: maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else.
  - vectorpush 11y ago
    > It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. I think this is because the comment comes off as flippant and snarky. > This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. That statement is ridiculous. I've never heard anyone claim that the computers of today don't "feel" any faster than computers of 20 years ago, but if you feel that way I just don't think you're living in the same universe as those of us who walk around with quad core computers in our pockets. > maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else. Please define "other stuff" and where you draw the line between that and simply "browsing"
    - jblow 11y ago
      As someone who has been around since before the Web, I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. In fact I gave a speech about this at Berkeley last week. I think it'll be online pretty soon. So now you have at least heard someone claim this.
ebbv 11y ago
Allowing web sites to access the file system is not a great idea.
- drvdevd 11y ago
  Not exactly disagreeing with you but for a long time now the web has been our primary path to most forms of code execution hasn't it? I mean if you count HTTP as the web in addition to browsers?
- vruiz 11y ago
  Having the capability does not imply having the permissions.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    What could possibly go wrong with that.
    - esailija 11y ago
      The permission to read a file's contents in a web app is given by either dragging the file from your desktop to the web app or choosing it with file picker. To save a file, a web app will have to ask the user to do a save as dialog. This permission model has pretty much always existed it was just extremely wasteful because you had to first send the file to server and then send the contents back. The new web file apis therefore don't add any new security issue but add massively better ux. To me this is much smarter model than something like "can I have full access to your fs yes/no? Btw this app doesn't work if you say no". I think you are thinking of this stupid model when you say "what could possibly go wrong with that?" but if you don't, please elaborate.
pdkl95 11y ago
You're asking for the ability to make perfect UI-spoofing attacks (among other types of attack). It is vitally important to maintain a wall between the browser's UI anything the remote code can touch.

by vruiz 11y ago

aidanhs 11y ago

Your comment reminded me of this highly entertaining talk - https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death... Although tongue in cheek, I think it gives some food for thought. I feel like WebAssembly is to asm.js what the modern JS profession is to old follow-your-cursor effect on webpages - it becomes something to take seriously and use, and having done a bunch of porting things with Emscripten the idea of a browser within a browser doesn't sound as crazy as it used to!

jerf 11y ago
To be honest, WebAssembly isn't really javascript anymore. asm.js was, albeit only sorta-kinda-just-barely (but in an important way), but WebAssembly isn't. There's a reasonable case to be made that in 20 years "everything" will be WebAssembly, but we won't be calling it Javascript, thinking of it like Javascript, or using it like Javascript. In the long term, this is the death knell for Javascript-as-the-only-choice. Javascript will live on, but when left to fend for itself on its own merits, it's just another 1990s-style dynamic scripting language with little to particularly recommend it over all the other 1990s-style dynamic scripting languages. But Javascript programmers need not fear this... it will be a very long, gradual transition. You'll have abundant time to make adjustments if you need to, and should you not want to, there will still be Javascript jobs for a very long time.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  You act like JavaScript's only upside is the fact that it's required in the browser. IME the opposite is true. I'm seeing companies flock to it outside of browser contexts in areas where "code reuse" or "isometric/universal" style programs aren't even possible.
  - jerf 11y ago
    It's not that it's the only upside. It's that once out of the browser, it isn't really a standout language. For instance, if you're going to have a "fair fight" out there, one can't help but notice that Python already has everything that we're standing around waiting for in ES6, plus the next couple of iterations. And that's just Python. You should also check into Perl, Ruby, Lua, and PHP, and that's without straying even a little outside of the "1990s dynamic scripting language" field, to say nothing of what you can find if you leave that behind. It just isn't that impressive of a language once you remove the browser prop. It isn't necessarily bad, or at least no worse than some other popular languages as well, but there's nothing uniquely good about it in the greater language landscape. To be honest, anyone who thinks that Javascript does have some sort of unique advantage needs to get out more and learn a few more languages. Even Python, which you'll find goes very quickly if you already know JS. Javascript is very, very not special. Again, since people seem to confuse these things, that does not make it bad, but it's very not special. Very boring, middle-of-the-road scripting lanugage that is, if anything, well behind the other ones in features because of its multihead, no-leader-in-practice development model.
    - Klathmon 11y ago
      But JS isn't just a "worse python" either. I've gotten around when it comes to languages, from business-basic to c++ to go to python, php, ruby, js, lua, and lisp. Having spent a non-trivial amount of time in each, JS has by far one of the best ecosystems i've ever seen. See, I hate talking about languages because it's hard to define what a language even is. Is it purely the syntax? Is it syntax+standard library? Or is it the whole set of syntax+libraries+ecosystem+idioms? From a purely syntax point of view, js is lacking some things and while they are getting fixed, it's taking longer than most would like. And i agree that in this aspect js is currently "mediocre" at best. From a "whole ecosystem" point of view, js is wonderful. It's fast, secure enough to give arbitrary code from anyone in a browser, has a stupidly huge set of libraries, an "idiomatic" style which works very well for some problems, and it's almost literally everywhere and on everything, has multiple competing implementations that helps drive performance and reduce bugs. Yeah, it's got it's quirks (and in JS's case, a lot of them), but every language it's age and older does. Now if there was some way to magically take all of the "other" parts from js and apply them to another language, you'd have an overnight success, but the fact is that the language syntax is such a small part of what a language truly is.

serge2k 11y ago

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we just implement this POSIX like standard at the OS layer. We can call it POSIX.

fennecfoxen 11y ago
Build some nice sandboxed hypermedia-application APIs into POSIX and get them adopted all over, and then sure, we can talk!
mindcrime 11y ago
It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. This whole trend of making the web browser a poor man's OS is definitely a bit hinky. I mean, how many layers of abstractions built on top of other (redundant) layers of abstraction really make sense? This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. Just to play Devil's Advocate: maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else.
- vectorpush 11y ago
  > It's a shame you got downvoted for that, as you make a very good point. I think this is because the comment comes off as flippant and snarky. > This stuff is one reason that, despite the advances associated with Moore's Law, the advent of SSD's, and increasing RAM counts, computers don't feel any faster than they did in 1995. It's ridiculous in a way. That statement is ridiculous. I've never heard anyone claim that the computers of today don't "feel" any faster than computers of 20 years ago, but if you feel that way I just don't think you're living in the same universe as those of us who walk around with quad core computers in our pockets. > maybe web browsers should be good at, ya know, browsing and leave the other stuff for something else. Please define "other stuff" and where you draw the line between that and simply "browsing"
  - jblow 11y ago
    As someone who has been around since before the Web, I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. In fact I gave a speech about this at Berkeley last week. I think it'll be online pretty soon. So now you have at least heard someone claim this.

ebbv 11y ago

Allowing web sites to access the file system is not a great idea.

drvdevd 11y ago
Not exactly disagreeing with you but for a long time now the web has been our primary path to most forms of code execution hasn't it? I mean if you count HTTP as the web in addition to browsers?
vruiz 11y ago
Having the capability does not imply having the permissions.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  What could possibly go wrong with that.
  - esailija 11y ago
    The permission to read a file's contents in a web app is given by either dragging the file from your desktop to the web app or choosing it with file picker. To save a file, a web app will have to ask the user to do a save as dialog. This permission model has pretty much always existed it was just extremely wasteful because you had to first send the file to server and then send the contents back. The new web file apis therefore don't add any new security issue but add massively better ux. To me this is much smarter model than something like "can I have full access to your fs yes/no? Btw this app doesn't work if you say no". I think you are thinking of this stupid model when you say "what could possibly go wrong with that?" but if you don't, please elaborate.

pdkl95 11y ago

You're asking for the ability to make perfect UI-spoofing attacks (among other types of attack). It is vitally important to maintain a wall between the browser's UI anything the remote code can touch.