5 ms·

Why would someone go through so much trouble to use a language that will run much slower than JITed javascript? I think most people miss that right now webasm

Why would someone go through so much trouble to use a language that will run much slower than JITed javascript? I think most people miss that right now webasm is good for run speed, size, and loading speed, but is not geared nearly as much towards using any language in a web page, since IO needs to be exposed to javascript.

robotmay 9y ago
JavaScript isn't everyone's cup of tea, and performance isn't always a huge concern :) The more other languages I learn, the more often I come back to Ruby. I'm excited to see it becoming a more portable language, and I think it'll make a good language for web clients someday.
- CyberDildonics 9y ago
  Again, all the IO still has to be done in javascript, you can only do raw processing in web assembly right now. If you try to write the web assembly part in ruby, you are sending your users a run time and using an interpreter that is itself being JITed, purely to transform some amounts of data between IO from the user, including any information to and from the DOM.
- untog 9y ago
  > performance isn't always a huge concern :) This is what concerns me a little with WASM. There are already too many web development experiences that prioritise developer experience and neglect user experience, I'm wondering what future we're walking into where we bundle three different standard libraries, ignore binary size, etc etc
  - morgancmartin 9y ago
    I've never understood this take on things, though I'm ready to if it can be explained to me. :) To me, it seems that the user experience vs dev experience trade off is subject to market forces and if it swings too wildly in either direction, a competitor will come through and wipe the floor with everyone else, no? It's always seemed unnecessary to me to worry about the effects of _more_ options, at least in the context of application development anyway.
mshenfield 9y ago
There are lots of things you can do that aren't performance bound: web pages focused on content, 2D games, simple forms.
deeg 9y ago
I thought the same thing when Node.js started to become popular: why would anybody go through the trouble to set up an environment to run single-threaded, interpreted applications on a server when we already had C/Java/.NET/etc? It turns out people like to use the languages/environments they already know.
tyingq 9y ago
There are plans for WASM to add features like GC, threads, PIC, direct DOM access, etc. So when those arrive, this can port over and bring less runtime. And there is currently pretty direct access to a canvas.

robotmay 9y ago

JavaScript isn't everyone's cup of tea, and performance isn't always a huge concern :) The more other languages I learn, the more often I come back to Ruby. I'm excited to see it becoming a more portable language, and I think it'll make a good language for web clients someday.

CyberDildonics 9y ago
Again, all the IO still has to be done in javascript, you can only do raw processing in web assembly right now. If you try to write the web assembly part in ruby, you are sending your users a run time and using an interpreter that is itself being JITed, purely to transform some amounts of data between IO from the user, including any information to and from the DOM.
untog 9y ago
> performance isn't always a huge concern :) This is what concerns me a little with WASM. There are already too many web development experiences that prioritise developer experience and neglect user experience, I'm wondering what future we're walking into where we bundle three different standard libraries, ignore binary size, etc etc
- morgancmartin 9y ago
  I've never understood this take on things, though I'm ready to if it can be explained to me. :) To me, it seems that the user experience vs dev experience trade off is subject to market forces and if it swings too wildly in either direction, a competitor will come through and wipe the floor with everyone else, no? It's always seemed unnecessary to me to worry about the effects of _more_ options, at least in the context of application development anyway.

mshenfield 9y ago

There are lots of things you can do that aren't performance bound: web pages focused on content, 2D games, simple forms.

deeg 9y ago

I thought the same thing when Node.js started to become popular: why would anybody go through the trouble to set up an environment to run single-threaded, interpreted applications on a server when we already had C/Java/.NET/etc? It turns out people like to use the languages/environments they already know.

tyingq 9y ago

There are plans for WASM to add features like GC, threads, PIC, direct DOM access, etc. So when those arrive, this can port over and bring less runtime. And there is currently pretty direct access to a canvas.