5 ms·

I wonder if the performance gain is worth the effort. Surely you can always squeeze more performance from JS like from any other language but what's the point i

I wonder if the performance gain is worth the effort. Surely you can always squeeze more performance from JS like from any other language but what's the point if you spend hours to match the performance you get for "free" from other languages? As far as WASM is concerned I'm more excited about the possibility to run any programming language on the web than the raw performance gains. So far it is still year(s) away from this goal(i.e. lack of web APIs/DOM access makes it useless for web dev).

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
maxxxxx 9y ago
It seems to that WASM is more suitable for non-browser work like Node.
- ISV_Damocles 9y ago
  No offense meant, but that couldn't be more wrong. If you're writing for the server, you can already use whichever language best suits the problem at hand. WASM will eventually allow the same choice in the browser. The extent to which WASM could be used in the Node ecosystem would essentially be an indictment of how badly the Node community has bungled FFI. (node-ffi[0] should absolutely be added to Node core, not be independently maintained and always trailing compatibility with newer node releases, right now you have to choose between security or compatibility) [0]: https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    No offense taken! I am pretty new to the JS world. "WASM will eventually allow the same choice in the browser." When will that actually be? That's the big question.
    - aschampion 9y ago
      Since November WASM is enabled by default in the major browsers now: https://caniuse.com/#feat=wasm https://caniuse.com/#feat=wasm
      - nocman 9y ago
        I guess if you don't include IE11 as one of the "major browsers". I wish that was the case. Yes, I know it is only receiving security updates -- but it will supposedly get those until Windows 10 is no longer supported (if I'm reading things right). Unfortunately, that doesn't stop a bunch of people from using it. It still has a considerable amount more marketshare than Edge does (if netmarketshare.com is to be believed).
        robocat 9y ago
        40% of desktop users use IE11 for our browser based app. 1% use an older version of IE, and 1% use Edge. Our clients are businesses, mostly in Australia and New Zealand.
        nocman 9y ago
        Yeah, I know many businesses still have to use IE11 because some web app they use requires IE (often on an intranet, but sometimes still even in the internet). Sad state of affairs.
gear54rus 9y ago
> hours to match the performance you get for "free" from other languages? In a sense, you pay those hours that you saved up by using an easier, more intuitive language like JS. Or you can choose not to and still have pretty good performance and blazing fast dev cycles.
- thefounder 9y ago
  I believe there are other languages easier and more intuitive than JS. The lack of DOM and GC support in WASM is the only reason JS is still ruling the web. As far as the performance is concerned I believe profilling the internals of the VM(as the author does) is not a good fix on the long term.
  - FridgeSeal 9y ago
    That and the fact that it's the only language blessed to have it's interpreter in the browser. If we could have been able to challenge it by allowing another language in there I would like to think we wouldn't be facing a lot of the issues we do now.
  - ShinTakuya 9y ago
    I agree regarding JS not being the easiest or most intuitive language, but I don't see JS going away any time soon and I don't think that's a bad thing. The last 5 years or so have seen JS transform from one of the most frustrating languages to one of the better ones. I think Typescript is where the future of web dev lies. Typescript for your main logic and WASM for optimising the parts that need it.
    - thefounder 9y ago
      Yeah, JS is better now but I bet we could do even better starting with a clean slate. Web dev shouldn't be tied to a single programming language. How would you like using PHP and its derivates(i.e. Hack) for everything web APIs/back-end? I could tell you that it made great progress since PHP 4.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

maxxxxx 9y ago

It seems to that WASM is more suitable for non-browser work like Node.

ISV_Damocles 9y ago
No offense meant, but that couldn't be more wrong. If you're writing for the server, you can already use whichever language best suits the problem at hand. WASM will eventually allow the same choice in the browser. The extent to which WASM could be used in the Node ecosystem would essentially be an indictment of how badly the Node community has bungled FFI. (node-ffi[0] should absolutely be added to Node core, not be independently maintained and always trailing compatibility with newer node releases, right now you have to choose between security or compatibility) [0]: https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi https://github.com/node-ffi/node-ffi
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  No offense taken! I am pretty new to the JS world. "WASM will eventually allow the same choice in the browser." When will that actually be? That's the big question.
  - aschampion 9y ago
    Since November WASM is enabled by default in the major browsers now: https://caniuse.com/#feat=wasm https://caniuse.com/#feat=wasm
    - nocman 9y ago
      I guess if you don't include IE11 as one of the "major browsers". I wish that was the case. Yes, I know it is only receiving security updates -- but it will supposedly get those until Windows 10 is no longer supported (if I'm reading things right). Unfortunately, that doesn't stop a bunch of people from using it. It still has a considerable amount more marketshare than Edge does (if netmarketshare.com is to be believed).
      - robocat 9y ago
        40% of desktop users use IE11 for our browser based app. 1% use an older version of IE, and 1% use Edge. Our clients are businesses, mostly in Australia and New Zealand.
        nocman 9y ago
        Yeah, I know many businesses still have to use IE11 because some web app they use requires IE (often on an intranet, but sometimes still even in the internet). Sad state of affairs.

gear54rus 9y ago

> hours to match the performance you get for "free" from other languages? In a sense, you pay those hours that you saved up by using an easier, more intuitive language like JS. Or you can choose not to and still have pretty good performance and blazing fast dev cycles.

thefounder 9y ago
I believe there are other languages easier and more intuitive than JS. The lack of DOM and GC support in WASM is the only reason JS is still ruling the web. As far as the performance is concerned I believe profilling the internals of the VM(as the author does) is not a good fix on the long term.
- FridgeSeal 9y ago
  That and the fact that it's the only language blessed to have it's interpreter in the browser. If we could have been able to challenge it by allowing another language in there I would like to think we wouldn't be facing a lot of the issues we do now.
- ShinTakuya 9y ago
  I agree regarding JS not being the easiest or most intuitive language, but I don't see JS going away any time soon and I don't think that's a bad thing. The last 5 years or so have seen JS transform from one of the most frustrating languages to one of the better ones. I think Typescript is where the future of web dev lies. Typescript for your main logic and WASM for optimising the parts that need it.
  - thefounder 9y ago
    Yeah, JS is better now but I bet we could do even better starting with a clean slate. Web dev shouldn't be tied to a single programming language. How would you like using PHP and its derivates(i.e. Hack) for everything web APIs/back-end? I could tell you that it made great progress since PHP 4.