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Another reminder to check out WebAssembly. Both updates in the release notes about WebAssembly sound very promising. One is getting towards complete parity with

Another reminder to check out WebAssembly. Both updates in the release notes about WebAssembly sound very promising. One is getting towards complete parity with native code, and the other is reduced overhead when interfacing with JS. I looked around the web and found this: https://github.com/appcypher/awesome-wasm-langs https://github.com/appcypher/awesome-wasm-langs ...which led me to this: https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript Its description is awesome: "Definitely not a TypeScript to WebAssembly compiler :rocket:" The thing that makes me most not want to miss the boat on WebAssembly so far is that Figma uses it (with C++): https://madewithwebassembly.com/showcase/figma/ https://madewithwebassembly.com/showcase/figma/

pjmlp 6y ago
Flash is slowly back. https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/ https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html
rvz 6y ago
> Another reminder to check out WebAssembly. Right. The actual reason you see all the big companies loving WebAssembly is that now you can fully have cross-platform black-box DRM binaries running on every browser. But of course what could possibly go wrong? It is another Adobe® Flash® that is controlled by the big tech companies rather than just one.
- untog 6y ago
  We already have black box DRM binaries in browsers. That battle is lost. WebAssembly is not another Flash. It might allow someone to create something that resembles Flash, but WebAssembly itself is not. You might as well criticise C because people can write DRM with it.
  - tgragnato 6y ago
    Isn’t EME limited to media sources? WebAssembly is not. It’s not a tiny difference, and skepticism is not necessarily unfounded.
    - jopsen 6y ago
      Sufficiently obfuscated JS isn't easy to read either.
  - nonbirithm 6y ago
    One point that I don't seem to hear a lot: You can still block ads on YouTube in the browser, but you can't in the mobile app. The difference is that in the browser you can open the page and inspect everything that it consists of. In the app everything is bytecode. The solution of stripping ads from the YouTube app is to maintain a hacked version and follow a convoluted multi-step process to root your device and disable signature verification just to be able to install it. What will the solution be when webpages bundle both the content and advertisements into inseparable binary black boxes? I think the population that consumes YouTube in general is much larger than the population that consumes paid content with DRM, and there would be a much larger pushback if webpages like YouTube started to be distributed in compiled format.
    - qppo 6y ago
      This has nothing to do with bytecode and everything to do with the security models used by Android and iOS.
    - untog 6y ago
      Ad blockers don’t work by inspecting the source code of YouTube’s JS and modifying it. Instead they inspect the network requests being sent, cookies being stored, elements being created and with which styles, and so on. WebAssembly changes none of those things.
  - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
    I believe you mean “deny box”?
- TheDong 6y ago
  Interestingly, webassembly is also helping make an open-source flash player possible. Ruffle [0] is written in rust, compiles to webassembly, and already can play a reasonably sized subset of flash correctly at their intended speed. [0]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Another than can run Flash, among other things: https://leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html https://leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html
  - taf2 6y ago
    This is awesome thank you for some reason last year my daughters school still needed a flash player for a typing program going to try this to see if works thanks!
- gpm 6y ago
  Webasm doesn't help much with drm since you can reverse engineer it just like any code. It doesn't have any privileged access to allow tricks like using a key stored in hardware (and other drm does). It does allow blackbox libraries. So does compiling to JavaScript though. Really it just means that the black box binaries are (even) faster than the white box scripts.
x87678r 6y ago
I always thought webassembly would be great that you can write rich guis in languages like Python or Java, but instead its mostly low level with Rust and C++ having momentum. Is it just not ready yet? or do I misunderstand the goals.
- etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
  It could be that the bundle sizes for the user to download are smaller with low level languages. Scripting languages (and Java) have large runtimes.

pjmlp 6y ago

Flash is slowly back. https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/ https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html https://www.leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html

rvz 6y ago

> Another reminder to check out WebAssembly. Right. The actual reason you see all the big companies loving WebAssembly is that now you can fully have cross-platform black-box DRM binaries running on every browser. But of course what could possibly go wrong? It is another Adobe® Flash® that is controlled by the big tech companies rather than just one.

untog 6y ago
We already have black box DRM binaries in browsers. That battle is lost. WebAssembly is not another Flash. It might allow someone to create something that resembles Flash, but WebAssembly itself is not. You might as well criticise C because people can write DRM with it.
- tgragnato 6y ago
  Isn’t EME limited to media sources? WebAssembly is not. It’s not a tiny difference, and skepticism is not necessarily unfounded.
  - jopsen 6y ago
    Sufficiently obfuscated JS isn't easy to read either.
- nonbirithm 6y ago
  One point that I don't seem to hear a lot: You can still block ads on YouTube in the browser, but you can't in the mobile app. The difference is that in the browser you can open the page and inspect everything that it consists of. In the app everything is bytecode. The solution of stripping ads from the YouTube app is to maintain a hacked version and follow a convoluted multi-step process to root your device and disable signature verification just to be able to install it. What will the solution be when webpages bundle both the content and advertisements into inseparable binary black boxes? I think the population that consumes YouTube in general is much larger than the population that consumes paid content with DRM, and there would be a much larger pushback if webpages like YouTube started to be distributed in compiled format.
  - qppo 6y ago
    This has nothing to do with bytecode and everything to do with the security models used by Android and iOS.
  - untog 6y ago
    Ad blockers don’t work by inspecting the source code of YouTube’s JS and modifying it. Instead they inspect the network requests being sent, cookies being stored, elements being created and with which styles, and so on. WebAssembly changes none of those things.
- rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  I believe you mean “deny box”?
TheDong 6y ago
Interestingly, webassembly is also helping make an open-source flash player possible. Ruffle [0] is written in rust, compiles to webassembly, and already can play a reasonably sized subset of flash correctly at their intended speed. [0]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Another than can run Flash, among other things: https://leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html https://leaningtech.com/pages/cheerpx.html
- taf2 6y ago
  This is awesome thank you for some reason last year my daughters school still needed a flash player for a typing program going to try this to see if works thanks!
gpm 6y ago
Webasm doesn't help much with drm since you can reverse engineer it just like any code. It doesn't have any privileged access to allow tricks like using a key stored in hardware (and other drm does). It does allow blackbox libraries. So does compiling to JavaScript though. Really it just means that the black box binaries are (even) faster than the white box scripts.

x87678r 6y ago

I always thought webassembly would be great that you can write rich guis in languages like Python or Java, but instead its mostly low level with Rust and C++ having momentum. Is it just not ready yet? or do I misunderstand the goals.

etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
It could be that the bundle sizes for the user to download are smaller with low level languages. Scripting languages (and Java) have large runtimes.