4 ms·

I really do prefer open stuff so I have zero plans on turning wasm on in my browser. How does open web benefit from wasm, pretty please? Because open web is top

by hexo 3y ago

I really do prefer open stuff so I have zero plans on turning wasm on in my browser. How does open web benefit from wasm, pretty please? Because open web is top priority, not enabling astonishingly complicated, compiled and locked down "apps". Did I miss something?

hobofan 3y ago
I don't think you are missing anything, it's just that most people care more about easily building things than "openness". Do you also not run javascript code of websites that has been run through a transpiler with tree-shaking and minification? Because WASM is about as locked down as that.
ben-schaaf 3y ago
How is wasm less open than minimised JavaScript? It's effectively just a binary format for asm.js.
LanternLight83 3y ago
Maybe you mean "openess" in an "in-browser inspectable" sense, ie. "open web" as in "Gopher & Gemini", but if you mean "open" as in "open-source" then there actually some folks doing really interesting things in this space: https://spritely.institute/news/hoot-wireworld-live-in-browser.html https://spritely.institute/news/hoot-wireworld-live-in-brows...
starlevel003 3y ago
You're not missing anything. WASM's primary purpose is to push unblockable, canvas-drawn ads.
jadbox 3y ago
I'm less interested in WASM in-browser than I am for WASM-powered services in edge computing (Cloudflare workers, Wasmer Edge, etc). Without WASM, you're always going to suffer cold start issues due to containers or other runtime initialization costs. This is likely the reason why Cloudflare Workers are so much cheaper than Lambda, however it's limited to workers/wasm.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I honestly don't really get how wasm solves this issue. How is it better for this than natively compiled binaries or java bytecode?
  - jadbox 3y ago
    Binaries require a container or VM sandboxing in order to run. Java bytecode, afaik, has a slow cold start issue and still requires some additional sandboxing afaik. WASM can cold start fast because the runtime API is natively restrictive to local resources and requires explicit permissions to do otherwise. It would seem that WASM actually makes for a better binary format for edge computing.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      > the runtime API is natively restrictive to local resources What does it even mean?
      - slaymaker1907 3y ago
        You can't just go calling fopen with all the permissions of the thread/process.
        kaba0 3y ago
        What does it have to do with fast startups then?
        jadbox 3y ago
        Since the WASM runtime doesn't have to worry about resource access violations or memory corruption, it doesn't need a VM or container. This means WASM can start faster without needing any additional security wrappers. I'm doing my best to simplify, but I'd recommend reading about Workerd or Wasmer to learn more about WASM host services.
kaba0 3y ago
How is the current JS blob served by e.g. facebook right now with a().b=c any more readable than a binary blob?
- hexo 3y ago
  About 1000 times more
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Please take a look at Facebook’s loaded js files.
mdasen 3y ago
Ultimately, you probably won't have an option - just as one can't disable JavaScript today and still view most of the web. If the vast majority of people leave WASM enabled, companies will build things using it. It seems likely that WASM will displace JavaScript over the next 20 years as engineers decide they'd like to use non-JS languages to build their client-side code. It will take time since there's a huge amount of JS that's already out there, but new projects will become less and less likely to choose JS. Some still will. Many people like JS. However, I think a majority of new front-end projects 10 years from now won't be JS.
bitzun 3y ago
Since unfortunately the proliferation of use of WASM on the open web seems inevitable (to me), perhaps some community effort into tooling to automatically inspect and disrupt WASM apps to make your browser behave is worthwhile. Random ideas: web canvas OCR scrapers, dumping longer strings from wasm memory to render a useful page, etc. I'm thinking of the regular debug tools but on steroids and geared around subverting the user-hostile stuff we're about to see.

by hexo 3y ago

hobofan 3y ago

I don't think you are missing anything, it's just that most people care more about easily building things than "openness". Do you also not run javascript code of websites that has been run through a transpiler with tree-shaking and minification? Because WASM is about as locked down as that.

ben-schaaf 3y ago

How is wasm less open than minimised JavaScript? It's effectively just a binary format for asm.js.

LanternLight83 3y ago

Maybe you mean "openess" in an "in-browser inspectable" sense, ie. "open web" as in "Gopher & Gemini", but if you mean "open" as in "open-source" then there actually some folks doing really interesting things in this space: https://spritely.institute/news/hoot-wireworld-live-in-browser.html https://spritely.institute/news/hoot-wireworld-live-in-brows...

starlevel003 3y ago

You're not missing anything. WASM's primary purpose is to push unblockable, canvas-drawn ads.

jadbox 3y ago

I'm less interested in WASM in-browser than I am for WASM-powered services in edge computing (Cloudflare workers, Wasmer Edge, etc). Without WASM, you're always going to suffer cold start issues due to containers or other runtime initialization costs. This is likely the reason why Cloudflare Workers are so much cheaper than Lambda, however it's limited to workers/wasm.

sanderjd 3y ago
I honestly don't really get how wasm solves this issue. How is it better for this than natively compiled binaries or java bytecode?
- jadbox 3y ago
  Binaries require a container or VM sandboxing in order to run. Java bytecode, afaik, has a slow cold start issue and still requires some additional sandboxing afaik. WASM can cold start fast because the runtime API is natively restrictive to local resources and requires explicit permissions to do otherwise. It would seem that WASM actually makes for a better binary format for edge computing.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    > the runtime API is natively restrictive to local resources What does it even mean?
    - slaymaker1907 3y ago
      You can't just go calling fopen with all the permissions of the thread/process.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        What does it have to do with fast startups then?
        jadbox 3y ago
        Since the WASM runtime doesn't have to worry about resource access violations or memory corruption, it doesn't need a VM or container. This means WASM can start faster without needing any additional security wrappers. I'm doing my best to simplify, but I'd recommend reading about Workerd or Wasmer to learn more about WASM host services.

kaba0 3y ago

How is the current JS blob served by e.g. facebook right now with a().b=c any more readable than a binary blob?

hexo 3y ago
About 1000 times more
- kaba0 3y ago
  Please take a look at Facebook’s loaded js files.

mdasen 3y ago

Ultimately, you probably won't have an option - just as one can't disable JavaScript today and still view most of the web. If the vast majority of people leave WASM enabled, companies will build things using it. It seems likely that WASM will displace JavaScript over the next 20 years as engineers decide they'd like to use non-JS languages to build their client-side code. It will take time since there's a huge amount of JS that's already out there, but new projects will become less and less likely to choose JS. Some still will. Many people like JS. However, I think a majority of new front-end projects 10 years from now won't be JS.

bitzun 3y ago

Since unfortunately the proliferation of use of WASM on the open web seems inevitable (to me), perhaps some community effort into tooling to automatically inspect and disrupt WASM apps to make your browser behave is worthwhile. Random ideas: web canvas OCR scrapers, dumping longer strings from wasm memory to render a useful page, etc. I'm thinking of the regular debug tools but on steroids and geared around subverting the user-hostile stuff we're about to see.