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In many ways, WebAssembly was a poor choice in naming. I propose that "WASM" be retroactively associated with the phrase "world-wide assembly". (Serious propo

• flohofwoe 5y ago
  WASM isn't "assembly" either though but bytecode ;)
  • krapp 5y ago
    If we can accept Javascript as bytecode we can accept this as assembly...
    • Grimm1 5y ago
      At the risk of stumbling into something terrible, who accepts Javascript as bytecode?
      • imbnwa 5y ago
        IIRC V8 generates bytecode from the AST and compiles that bytecode
        • theta_d 5y ago
          Yes but that is converting JavaScript to bytecode, not using JavaScript as bytecode.
        • junon 5y ago
          That's an implementation detail.
      • krapp 5y ago
        Javascript as bytecode (or Javascript as assembly) is a paradigm that comes from compile-to-js languages like Typescript and asm.js[0], considering such "compiled" javascript as equivalent to a universal bytecode. Here's an old HN thread about it [1,2] and if you look around you can find it being asserted[3] as often as criticised[4,5]. Ironically, many of the arguments against the use of JS as bytecode just got transplanted into arguments against WASM, but one common argument against WASM is "why do we need this when we can already compile to javascript?" [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227274 [1]https://www.hanselman.com/blog/javascript-is-web-assembly-language-and-thats-ok https://www.hanselman.com/blog/javascript-is-web-assembly-la... [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5762183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5762183 [3]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3708919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3708919 [4]https://blog.izs.me/2011/09/javascript-is-not-web-assembly/ https://blog.izs.me/2011/09/javascript-is-not-web-assembly/ [5]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5469310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5469310
        • Grimm1 5y ago
          Oh but that's not really bytecode is it? I'd say that's language transpilation. Which is a different topic, a contentious one for sure, but I don't think I'd qualify compiling down to another language as a form of bytecode, perhaps I'm splitting hairs though. My understanding is with bytecode that would then be read during execution on a vm or some such like Java, or Python bytecode during execution. JS is still a high level language which V8 then turns into it's own type of bytecode before being able to execute it.
          • krapp 5y ago
            Yes, I would agree completely... but I've gotten into enough arguments about it on HN and been downvoted hard enough for disagreeing with the premise to know how seriously a lot of people take it.
      • ridiculous_fish 5y ago
        The Hermes JavaScript engine statically compiles JS to bytecode. https://github.com/facebook/hermes https://github.com/facebook/hermes
    • k__ 5y ago
      But who does that? Serious question. I read it often, but besides minified JS, most "to js compilers" try to emit readable JS and I didn't have the impression that the goal of bytecode was to be readable.
      • wind_bat_ri 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110307 > The Hermes JavaScript engine statically compiles JS to bytecode. https://github.com/facebook/hermes https://github.com/facebook/hermes
• hardwaregeek 5y ago
  Well it's fitting in that JavaScript is a pretty poor name too