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Wasm isn't really for pretty apps you can quickly make in Vue. It's more for those heavy duty apps, games or libraries that most people run natively because of

Wasm isn't really for pretty apps you can quickly make in Vue. It's more for those heavy duty apps, games or libraries that most people run natively because of performance and because they're written in languages like C++, Rust, or even Fortran (scientific computing libraries). Also, JS isn't the best tool for all programs, and programmers would like more of a choice when it comes to things that are more than just your standard web app.

marcosdumay 8y ago
> Wasm isn't really for pretty apps you can quickly make in Vue. Why not? Developing pretty apps in Vue (or anything in JS-land) is an horrible experience, why shouldn't we use WASM to port some better environment into there?
- bolb 8y ago
  There are programmers who haven’t worked with anything but the HTML+JS+CSS ecosystem, especially on the front-end. Lots of sunk costs there. Presenting WASM as a threat will lead to it facing stiff resistance from entrenched interests (amazing that people in their 20s and 30s are entrenched interests, but that’s modern front-end development). A more gradual, evolutionary, low-hype approach seems prudent, as the platform matures and until/if someone makes the “killer app”.
  - goatlover 8y ago
    Yeah, look at what happened to Dart in the browser, which is a shame.
- edflsafoiewq 8y ago
  If there's some better environment to be found in non-JS-land, why is Electron and its ilk so popular?
  - discreteevent 8y ago
    "better environment" - worse is better. Its explained in the comment above you about entrenched interests. Whether js and html are worse in the browser is one thing but I think you could argue strongly that they are worse on the desktop. As a user, the experience for me is pretty bad.
    - eksemplar 8y ago
      Is electron really worse though? I use VS and VSC professionally and VSC is the best ide I’ve ever used. VS is great too, but it’s performance is really, really, terrible when your documents and settings directory is on one network drive and your codebase is on another. Not exactly VS’s fault, but it’s an ide for enterprise that can’t function with the most basic enterprise drive setup? VSC, the electron app on the other hand doesn’t give two shits. People usually tell me VSC is the one off unicorn. But isn’t discord better than team speak and ventrilo? Isn’t slack excellent? I don’t think sunk cost is a negative when people are building better tools with it.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Because many don't know any better.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      Meh, the issue with Electron is performance. The actual dev environment is decent, like how trivial it is to bring your own abstractions like React. Being able to inspect element and use Chrome's debugger. Being able to use whatever text editor you want. Using a compile-to-JS language. etc. I'm certainly not using Xcode + Cocoa + the MVC abstraction for iOS/macOS apps because it's the superior way to build software. It has its own warts, like the effort it takes to swap out MVC with some other pattern, or how it comes with no async abstractions -- you'll just be writing callback code like JS developers had to before the Promise. It's tempting to unmask "ugh, JS developers" as a bunch of idiots, but I think you'd only be kidding yourself if you think your pet environment is some global optimum.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  I don’t think it’s horrible, could you point me to something better? We used to work with, first WPF then web forms and later MVC with razor, and we very quickly bought Telerik because the standard UI components in .Net are horrible. Aside from that I’ve worked with JAVA I can’t recall what we used before FX but both were terrible. In the JS CSS environment I can literally make an interface that doesn’t look like ass by simply using the standard setup in a front end with very few lines of code. I guess a think like Blazor.net might make wasm competitive, but unlike JS, that requires Microsoft not to drop it in a year because they don’t have the OS movement JS does. I understand why people dislike the package he’ll of modern JS, but so far, it’s proven itself to be just as trustworthy as any curated library. On the other hand you’re not tied down in JS. When Microsoft made entity they wanted people to use it, even though it’s fucking awful. In JS you can very easily replace a component if something better comes along. That’s a great strength. Graphql has been really instrumental for us for instance. We operate apps in low connective environments, so being able to only transfer what is needed is really great. Graphql isn’t JS only, but it takes very little time and effort to setup an Apollo, graphql and vue app, and it’s got very few issues. The .Net integration of graphql is still a 3rd party library that doesn’t really work that well and isn’t easy to use. That’s the thing with JS, it’s just really productive in the real world. Blazor.net looks really productive, but it’s only productive when you don’t need it to do something Microsoft hasn’t thought of, and it’s the only WASM integration that I’ve seen that is even remotely competitive with JS.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    I don't really see a need of replacing the DOM. It has some problems, but nearly everything around has at least as many problems, just different ones. Indeed, that's the reason I want to see WASM interact well with it. The largest problems of the web programming are lack of componentization and Javascript, we may be able to solve that last one soon! The thing with JS is that it is a no batteries, no novelty, no shortcut, not very productive language, that manages to be both old-school and novel on all the bad ways. You can't just carelessly gather code and use it, because there are no safety boundaries; most code that is not at the frontend (yeah, like Apollo) have no consideration about security, so you can't simply expose it; the entire ecosystem is a house of cards; and the language itself is a pile of WTFs just waiting for you to discover another one. Besides, the web stack is pretty much controlled by Google nowadays. Yes, they manage development resources better than Microsoft, but I would prefer working on a stable and free environment.

marcosdumay 8y ago

> Wasm isn't really for pretty apps you can quickly make in Vue. Why not? Developing pretty apps in Vue (or anything in JS-land) is an horrible experience, why shouldn't we use WASM to port some better environment into there?

bolb 8y ago
There are programmers who haven’t worked with anything but the HTML+JS+CSS ecosystem, especially on the front-end. Lots of sunk costs there. Presenting WASM as a threat will lead to it facing stiff resistance from entrenched interests (amazing that people in their 20s and 30s are entrenched interests, but that’s modern front-end development). A more gradual, evolutionary, low-hype approach seems prudent, as the platform matures and until/if someone makes the “killer app”.
- goatlover 8y ago
  Yeah, look at what happened to Dart in the browser, which is a shame.
edflsafoiewq 8y ago
If there's some better environment to be found in non-JS-land, why is Electron and its ilk so popular?
- discreteevent 8y ago
  "better environment" - worse is better. Its explained in the comment above you about entrenched interests. Whether js and html are worse in the browser is one thing but I think you could argue strongly that they are worse on the desktop. As a user, the experience for me is pretty bad.
  - eksemplar 8y ago
    Is electron really worse though? I use VS and VSC professionally and VSC is the best ide I’ve ever used. VS is great too, but it’s performance is really, really, terrible when your documents and settings directory is on one network drive and your codebase is on another. Not exactly VS’s fault, but it’s an ide for enterprise that can’t function with the most basic enterprise drive setup? VSC, the electron app on the other hand doesn’t give two shits. People usually tell me VSC is the one off unicorn. But isn’t discord better than team speak and ventrilo? Isn’t slack excellent? I don’t think sunk cost is a negative when people are building better tools with it.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Because many don't know any better.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    Meh, the issue with Electron is performance. The actual dev environment is decent, like how trivial it is to bring your own abstractions like React. Being able to inspect element and use Chrome's debugger. Being able to use whatever text editor you want. Using a compile-to-JS language. etc. I'm certainly not using Xcode + Cocoa + the MVC abstraction for iOS/macOS apps because it's the superior way to build software. It has its own warts, like the effort it takes to swap out MVC with some other pattern, or how it comes with no async abstractions -- you'll just be writing callback code like JS developers had to before the Promise. It's tempting to unmask "ugh, JS developers" as a bunch of idiots, but I think you'd only be kidding yourself if you think your pet environment is some global optimum.
eksemplar 8y ago
I don’t think it’s horrible, could you point me to something better? We used to work with, first WPF then web forms and later MVC with razor, and we very quickly bought Telerik because the standard UI components in .Net are horrible. Aside from that I’ve worked with JAVA I can’t recall what we used before FX but both were terrible. In the JS CSS environment I can literally make an interface that doesn’t look like ass by simply using the standard setup in a front end with very few lines of code. I guess a think like Blazor.net might make wasm competitive, but unlike JS, that requires Microsoft not to drop it in a year because they don’t have the OS movement JS does. I understand why people dislike the package he’ll of modern JS, but so far, it’s proven itself to be just as trustworthy as any curated library. On the other hand you’re not tied down in JS. When Microsoft made entity they wanted people to use it, even though it’s fucking awful. In JS you can very easily replace a component if something better comes along. That’s a great strength. Graphql has been really instrumental for us for instance. We operate apps in low connective environments, so being able to only transfer what is needed is really great. Graphql isn’t JS only, but it takes very little time and effort to setup an Apollo, graphql and vue app, and it’s got very few issues. The .Net integration of graphql is still a 3rd party library that doesn’t really work that well and isn’t easy to use. That’s the thing with JS, it’s just really productive in the real world. Blazor.net looks really productive, but it’s only productive when you don’t need it to do something Microsoft hasn’t thought of, and it’s the only WASM integration that I’ve seen that is even remotely competitive with JS.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  I don't really see a need of replacing the DOM. It has some problems, but nearly everything around has at least as many problems, just different ones. Indeed, that's the reason I want to see WASM interact well with it. The largest problems of the web programming are lack of componentization and Javascript, we may be able to solve that last one soon! The thing with JS is that it is a no batteries, no novelty, no shortcut, not very productive language, that manages to be both old-school and novel on all the bad ways. You can't just carelessly gather code and use it, because there are no safety boundaries; most code that is not at the frontend (yeah, like Apollo) have no consideration about security, so you can't simply expose it; the entire ecosystem is a house of cards; and the language itself is a pile of WTFs just waiting for you to discover another one. Besides, the web stack is pretty much controlled by Google nowadays. Yes, they manage development resources better than Microsoft, but I would prefer working on a stable and free environment.