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Had a quick look through, looks interesting. Some thoughts * Only 32-bit address space (although they do say "Future version of WebAssembly might provide memor
by Ono-Sendai 9y ago
Had a quick look through, looks interesting.
Some thoughts
* Only 32-bit address space (although they do say "Future version of WebAssembly might provide memory instructions with 64 bit address ranges")
* Webassembly is pretty low level. Just 4 basic types (integers, floats). No C-style structures even. This is lower level than e.g. LLVM IR, and lower level than the Java VM.
* No garbage collection support.
I hope Webassembly can be used from not just Javascript, but something like C++, directly.
- pjmlp 9y agoThere are already quite a few of ongoing projects for compiler backends targeting WebAssembly. https://github.com/appcypher/awesome-wasm-langs/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/appcypher/awesome-wasm-langs/blob/master/... As for lacking a GC in its present version, the runtime can always bring one along, just like in most CPUs.
- empath75 9y agoYou can compile rust to it.
- tscs37 9y agoI would say that 32bit are more than enough for most web applications. I struggle to recall any web application that would require more than 4GB of RAM to run.
- Doxin 9y agoDesktop applications are increasingly moving to the web. Regardless of whether you think this is a good thing, the standard has to take that into account.
- tscs37 9y agoI doubt that every single desktop application will move into the web for a good long while, long enough to have a smooth transition from 32bit to 64bit if necessary, though I doubt applications that need more will use WASM.
- Doxin 9y ago> I doubt that every single desktop application will move into the web for a good long while Oh sure, personally I hope it'll never quite happen. But It'll get there and a standard needs to be forward-facing.
- moocowtruck 9y agoso once all desktop is in the browser, can we then make the browser the sole interface, and all in one stroke have desktop apps again? Ouroboros eh?
- krapp 9y agoWebAssembly apps don't have to be hosted on the web, or run in a browser. They will, almost exclusively, because the "browser as OS" model is what modern web developers have fixated on, because of javascript. But, there's no reason users couldn't install and run WASM natively as well.
- sitepodmatt 9y agoSlack?