4 ms·

And what about server developers using Node.js?

• pizlonator 9y ago
  Right! It can't be the all of the cool features are done in wasm, which doesn't even have a GC yet.
  • vlunkr 9y ago
    WASM is farther along than concurrent JS though...
    • pizlonator 9y ago
      That's true. But most of the web is written in JS, not wasm.
• fermuch 9y ago
  Is there any limitation or reason for not implementing WASM on nodejs?
  • pizlonator 9y ago
    Is there any limitation of reason for forcing people to rewrite their Node.js apps in something else just to get modern features?
    • gcb0 9y ago
      in this case, yes, a feature that breaks backward compatibility. So someone suggested rewriting in another language, since the new feature will not fit the only advantage nodejs have: same language as browser. The alternative is to rewrite in a type of JS that will not run on the browser either.
      • pizlonator 9y ago
        Te proposal for concurrency in the post does not break backward compatibility.
  • stupidcar 9y ago
    Of course not, and hopefully it will come to V8, but its mere existence does not preclude enhancing JavaScript, any more than the existence of PInvoke or JNI precludes enhancing .NET and Java. When people say "JS shouldn't support feature X", when feature X is supported in every other serious language, I can't help but guess that their real problem is with JS itself, and they just don't think people should be using it at all. Fine, if that's their opinion, but they should come right out and say it.
    • pizlonator 9y ago
      So true! Lots of people actually like using JS. I think it makes sense to understand what features can be added to this language.
    • chrisco255 9y ago
      Well for me it adds complexity to JS. One nice thing about JS is that it is single threaded and you don't have to deal with locks or inconsistencies there. An entire class of problems goes away, and since JS event loop is reasonably fast as it is, it's pretty nice not having to worry about concurrency.
      • threatofrain 9y ago
        I would think that it's owing to the frequently single-threaded context of JS that concurrency becomes even more vital for maintaining the liveliness of your app. I also think that identifying aspects of concurrency often means free parallelism speedups, and the user doesn't even have to be aware -- no extra mental price.
  • Ajedi32 9y ago
    No. In fact, AFAIK it's already implemented on Node, behind the --expose-wasm flag: http://thecodebarbarian.com/getting-started-with-webassembly-in-node.js.html http://thecodebarbarian.com/getting-started-with-webassembly...
  • thehardsphere 9y ago
    There may or may not be, but that doesn't address that Node.js was created to specifically avoid a threaded concurrency model in the first place.
  • jensvdh 9y ago
    What's the point? Why not write your server directly in say Python or Java then? I thought WASM is meant to get around the restriction that the browser only understands JS right now.
    • pitaj 9y ago
      > why not use X Because X doesn't run in a browser
      • kornakiewicz 9y ago
        Do you need to run your server in a browser?
        • geldan 9y ago
          No, but it's very nice to be able to share code for things like view rendering or form validation between the server and client without jumping through hoops.
          • shurcooL 9y ago
            So you use language X. Compile it and run it natively on server, compile it to wasm and run that in the browser.
            • chr1 9y ago
              Why should i use language X that i don't like, instead of nice dynamic language, without compilation step that i like, and which only misses this tiny feature?
• rmrfrmrf 9y ago
  Depends on what you're doing, but if you just want to take advantage of multiple cores you can already accomplish that with `cluster`.
  • pizlonator 9y ago
    I remember when people used to say "you don't need threads, just use fork"!
    • rmrfrmrf 9y ago
      What do they say now, out of curiosity?
      • pizlonator 9y ago
        Now they say use fork-join. ;-) Point is, some people don’t like threads and probably never will. Other people like threads and probably always will. Some languages have threads and many other programming models and then everyone is happy. I want the people who like threads to be happy in JS.
• thehardsphere 9y ago
  I thought the point of Node.js was that threads were too complicated and rendered unnecessary by asynchronous event loops that do message passing between processes. Are the Node people finally giving up on this trope?
• api 9y ago
  If you have crazy high performance stuff you can do it in native modules.