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> As I understand it, it's not even really possible today to make WebAssembly do anything meaningful in the browser without trampolining back out to JavaScript

by rdtsc 3y ago

> As I understand it, it's not even really possible today to make WebAssembly do anything meaningful in the browser without trampolining back out to JavaScript anyway, which seems like a remarkable missed opportunity. That's the underlying messy API it's built on. There are specs to make the API more standardized like https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI But overall, yeah, it feels like a shiny new toy everyone is excited about and wants to use. Some toys can be fun to play with, but it doesn't mean we have to rewrite production systems in it. Sometimes, or most of the time, toys don't become useful tools.

dylan604 3y ago
Isn't that specifically why they are called toys and not tools?
- rdtsc 3y ago
  That's the idea! If we can just convince people who make product and technology decisions to see that and not push the next shiny toy as the new tool or library everyone has to use, we'd all be in good shape :-)
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    Because you think Unity3D should have stuck with its tried and true Flash back-end instead of moving on to shiny toy WebAssembly? https://forum.unity.com/threads/return-flash-deployment-back.231072/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/return-flash-deployment-back... >Flash was not discontinued "because it couldn't provide good graphics". It was discontinued, because we no longer believe that Flash as a platform has any future. That has not changed.
dmazzoni 3y ago
You seem to think WebAssembly is a "toy" and nobody's really found a good use for it, but actually it's being used in some really successful and high-profile web apps, but it's so seamless that you probably don't even realize it. Here are some of my favorite examples: Figma Google Earth Photoshop Web Any Unity games you've played on the web: WebAssembly. Everything built using the Blazor framework in C#: runs on WebAssembly on the web. I really don't think all of those sites are using WebAssembly because it's a cool new toy. They're using it because it's actually pretty useful technology that enables you to build really powerful software that runs on the web browser without being limited to JavaScript.

by rdtsc 3y ago

dylan604 3y ago

Isn't that specifically why they are called toys and not tools?

rdtsc 3y ago
That's the idea! If we can just convince people who make product and technology decisions to see that and not push the next shiny toy as the new tool or library everyone has to use, we'd all be in good shape :-)
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Because you think Unity3D should have stuck with its tried and true Flash back-end instead of moving on to shiny toy WebAssembly? https://forum.unity.com/threads/return-flash-deployment-back.231072/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/return-flash-deployment-back... >Flash was not discontinued "because it couldn't provide good graphics". It was discontinued, because we no longer believe that Flash as a platform has any future. That has not changed.

dmazzoni 3y ago

You seem to think WebAssembly is a "toy" and nobody's really found a good use for it, but actually it's being used in some really successful and high-profile web apps, but it's so seamless that you probably don't even realize it. Here are some of my favorite examples: Figma Google Earth Photoshop Web Any Unity games you've played on the web: WebAssembly. Everything built using the Blazor framework in C#: runs on WebAssembly on the web. I really don't think all of those sites are using WebAssembly because it's a cool new toy. They're using it because it's actually pretty useful technology that enables you to build really powerful software that runs on the web browser without being limited to JavaScript.