4 ms·

WebAssembly will not revolutionize anything. It's like java where people claim it's as fast as native code, and yet every single program runs like a dog and tak

by jbb555 10y ago

WebAssembly will not revolutionize anything. It's like java where people claim it's as fast as native code, and yet every single program runs like a dog and takes 100 times the resources. Only worse because it runs in a browser.

Zekio 10y ago
Well hopefully WebAssembly will fix the 20% CPU util to scroll on some websites because of the insane amount of JS
- jalfresi 10y ago
  For me, this sums up the current state of front-end web dev. If you have so much JS on page that it affects scrolling, the problem is not the scrolling...
brianwawok 10y ago
The financial exchanges running in Java would like to disagree with your gross generalization.
- gwbas1c 10y ago
  Yes, but: These a highly-tuned code that starts infrequently and doesn't use GC. VMs still have a startup cost; although one could argue that it's something that can be optimized out if there's enough desire.
  - John23832 10y ago
    Come on man. "Yes, but:", you were wrong. No need to save face.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    The financial exchanges I know DO use GC. Startup cost on server side apps is big O of 0. The average JVM for most apps run from maybe 1 hour (continuous deployment shops) to 1 month (slower to release shops). 3 seconds to start the JVM? Does't matter in either of those, don't server traffic until it is done.
lucian1900 10y ago
That has more to do with the libraries than the runtime. The JVM is very fast, but the classlib is very big and inefficient to load. Dalvik's major advancement was faster class loading.
sontek 10y ago
I'm not a java developer but I find this generalization pretty ignorant (sorry... I don't mean this in an insulting way... maybe misinformed is a better word?). The JVM is an extremely fast system and if you run java on top of it that is fine. There is a reason so many of the world changing distributed systems (Cassandra, Kafka, ZooKeeper, etc) are built on top of it. I believe what you are thinking of our java business systems which are usually bloated/slow and developed by similar developers who think backends can be automated. There is trade-offs on both cases, if you can optimize for developer speed and sacrifice app performance that might be fine for your use-case. Software applies to pretty much every industry and not everyone needs scale but not everyone can live with poor performance either.
shadowmint 10y ago
:) You're wrong. (See, I can just drop off one line unjustified comments too, but I wont~) WPF native applications are failing against electron applications; slack, atom, vscode. If you think that because it runs in a browser it'll be slow, try writing a native windows 10 application sometime. You'll be both astonished and disappointed by how terribly slow the 'GPU accelerated' application is. All web assembly does is cement this desktop dominance from 'native' applications and allow people to start pushing realistically into the mobile space with react native, etc. You don't think it'll revolutionize anything? Haaaa~
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  > try writing a native windows 10 application sometime I write Windows 10 applications for a living. I've never had any performance issue...
mrits 10y ago
The JVM is very fast.
John23832 10y ago
That Java comment is horribly misinformed. Sure, the JVM requires more resources at a minimum that implementations in other languages, but a competent programer using the JVM will run circles around your favorite Python/JS/(insert language here) implementation.

by jbb555 10y ago

Zekio 10y ago

Well hopefully WebAssembly will fix the 20% CPU util to scroll on some websites because of the insane amount of JS

jalfresi 10y ago
For me, this sums up the current state of front-end web dev. If you have so much JS on page that it affects scrolling, the problem is not the scrolling...

brianwawok 10y ago

The financial exchanges running in Java would like to disagree with your gross generalization.

gwbas1c 10y ago
Yes, but: These a highly-tuned code that starts infrequently and doesn't use GC. VMs still have a startup cost; although one could argue that it's something that can be optimized out if there's enough desire.
- John23832 10y ago
  Come on man. "Yes, but:", you were wrong. No need to save face.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  The financial exchanges I know DO use GC. Startup cost on server side apps is big O of 0. The average JVM for most apps run from maybe 1 hour (continuous deployment shops) to 1 month (slower to release shops). 3 seconds to start the JVM? Does't matter in either of those, don't server traffic until it is done.

lucian1900 10y ago

That has more to do with the libraries than the runtime. The JVM is very fast, but the classlib is very big and inefficient to load. Dalvik's major advancement was faster class loading.

sontek 10y ago

I'm not a java developer but I find this generalization pretty ignorant (sorry... I don't mean this in an insulting way... maybe misinformed is a better word?). The JVM is an extremely fast system and if you run java on top of it that is fine. There is a reason so many of the world changing distributed systems (Cassandra, Kafka, ZooKeeper, etc) are built on top of it. I believe what you are thinking of our java business systems which are usually bloated/slow and developed by similar developers who think backends can be automated. There is trade-offs on both cases, if you can optimize for developer speed and sacrifice app performance that might be fine for your use-case. Software applies to pretty much every industry and not everyone needs scale but not everyone can live with poor performance either.

shadowmint 10y ago

:) You're wrong. (See, I can just drop off one line unjustified comments too, but I wont~) WPF native applications are failing against electron applications; slack, atom, vscode. If you think that because it runs in a browser it'll be slow, try writing a native windows 10 application sometime. You'll be both astonished and disappointed by how terribly slow the 'GPU accelerated' application is. All web assembly does is cement this desktop dominance from 'native' applications and allow people to start pushing realistically into the mobile space with react native, etc. You don't think it'll revolutionize anything? Haaaa~

miguelrochefort 10y ago
> try writing a native windows 10 application sometime I write Windows 10 applications for a living. I've never had any performance issue...

mrits 10y ago

The JVM is very fast.

John23832 10y ago

That Java comment is horribly misinformed. Sure, the JVM requires more resources at a minimum that implementations in other languages, but a competent programer using the JVM will run circles around your favorite Python/JS/(insert language here) implementation.