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I'm not a fan of seeing web assembly spread outside the browser. If you want to sandbox binary code, there are many much more efficient options, eg. Linux conta

I'm not a fan of seeing web assembly spread outside the browser. If you want to sandbox binary code, there are many much more efficient options, eg. Linux containers (especially with tools like gvisor) or VMs. Vendors that only allow use of WebAssembly are leaving performance and compatibility on the table.

CharlesW 7y ago
> If you want to sandbox binary code, there are many much more efficient options, eg. Linux containers (especially with tools like gvisor) or VMs. WebAssembly is a VM, with an accompanying instruction format.[1] > Vendors that only allow use of WebAssembly are leaving performance and compatibility on the table. It'd be interesting to know what you're thinking of when you say that. For example, is Cloudflare leaving performance and compatibility on the table by using WebAssembly instead of Linux containers for Cloudflare Workers? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly#Stack_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly#Stack_machine
- chii 7y ago
  And what if the windows users? Webassembly is a perfectly good container and would by default have crossplatform capability.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Just like when I deploy Jars compiled on Windows across Linux servers, amazing!
gravypod 7y ago
Would you say the same about the JVM, JavaScript (SpiderMonkey + V8), RVM, cPython, and other bytecode VMs? I don't see how a bytecode VM leaves performance and compatibility on the table. If anything, from the JVM standpoint, the JIT features and platform separation improve performance and stability.
kentonv 7y ago
VMs might be more "efficient" in some ways but certainly not all ways. If you want to run 10,000+ sandboxes on a machine, you can do it with WebAssembly. With (hardware virtualization) VMs it would be rough.