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Flash and Java Applets both owned a rectangle of the screen. Wasm interacts with the page just like JS does. So in contrast to Flash and Java, Wasm fits in with

by paulgb 3y ago

Flash and Java Applets both owned a rectangle of the screen. Wasm interacts with the page just like JS does. So in contrast to Flash and Java, Wasm fits in with semantic web content to the same extent that JS does.

throwaway847599 3y ago
Java applets could access the DOM and even run Javascript functions.
- paulgb 3y ago
  Sure, but presumably the ones that “don’t fit in semantic web content” is a reference to the ones that rendered a portion of the page in Java, otherwise the same could be said about JavaScript.
jeroenhd 3y ago
As you can read in the various comments on here, that's also the model many WASM fans are going for. Google Docs switched to rendering a full screen canvas rather than using the DOM, and Flutter/Compose do the exact same thing. WASM is very much heading in the direction of owning a rectangle on the screen. Plus, Java and Flash embeds could also call Javascript callbacks while leveraging the improved performance of their native plugins.
- paulgb 3y ago
  Google Docs doesn’t use Wasm, from what I can tell. The move towards using canvas/gl/webgpu over DOM for performance is orthogonal to using Wasm. They go together nicely, but if you’re worried about DOM being replaced, Docs is a good example of how that will happen with or without Wasm. Another pattern I’ve seen is to render DOM on top of a canvas, with UI elements done in the DOM, and high-performance graphics on the canvas. This seems to be a good balance. https://x.com/paulgb/status/1688919428740816896?s=46 https://x.com/paulgb/status/1688919428740816896?s=46
troupo 3y ago
> Wasm interacts with the page just like JS does. It doesn't. Any interaction with the page happens through a JS bridge. > Wasm fits in with semantic web content to the same extent that JS does. It doesn't. It's a VM that runs side by side and only has a tiny window into the rest of the browser through arrays of integers passed between it and Javascript.
- paulgb 3y ago
  > Any interaction with the page happens through a JS bridge. Right. The point I’m trying to make is that Wasm can only interact with the user through those JS APIs. This is in direct contrast to Java/Flash, which could directly render on the screen with an API that bypassed the browser’s JS layer.

by paulgb 3y ago

throwaway847599 3y ago

Java applets could access the DOM and even run Javascript functions.

paulgb 3y ago
Sure, but presumably the ones that “don’t fit in semantic web content” is a reference to the ones that rendered a portion of the page in Java, otherwise the same could be said about JavaScript.

jeroenhd 3y ago

As you can read in the various comments on here, that's also the model many WASM fans are going for. Google Docs switched to rendering a full screen canvas rather than using the DOM, and Flutter/Compose do the exact same thing. WASM is very much heading in the direction of owning a rectangle on the screen. Plus, Java and Flash embeds could also call Javascript callbacks while leveraging the improved performance of their native plugins.

paulgb 3y ago
Google Docs doesn’t use Wasm, from what I can tell. The move towards using canvas/gl/webgpu over DOM for performance is orthogonal to using Wasm. They go together nicely, but if you’re worried about DOM being replaced, Docs is a good example of how that will happen with or without Wasm. Another pattern I’ve seen is to render DOM on top of a canvas, with UI elements done in the DOM, and high-performance graphics on the canvas. This seems to be a good balance. https://x.com/paulgb/status/1688919428740816896?s=46 https://x.com/paulgb/status/1688919428740816896?s=46

troupo 3y ago

> Wasm interacts with the page just like JS does. It doesn't. Any interaction with the page happens through a JS bridge. > Wasm fits in with semantic web content to the same extent that JS does. It doesn't. It's a VM that runs side by side and only has a tiny window into the rest of the browser through arrays of integers passed between it and Javascript.

paulgb 3y ago
> Any interaction with the page happens through a JS bridge. Right. The point I’m trying to make is that Wasm can only interact with the user through those JS APIs. This is in direct contrast to Java/Flash, which could directly render on the screen with an API that bypassed the browser’s JS layer.