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I'm still trying to understand what this does and what's the use case. Is the "edge" a server? The browser? Why should I compile WordPress or Laravel to wasm?

tredre3 2y ago
In this context the edge is a fancy word to say "serverless". It just means that your PHP interpreter will be started on-demand on a node closer to your customer's request. So if your website receives no requests, it costs you nothing. And requests have less latency for the user. That's the theory anyway, in my experience reality is a lot more nuanced because the serverless node still has to reach a database and so on.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  PHP nowadays already has a JIT compiler and its own bytecode, no need for WebAssembly.
  - jw1224 2y ago
    This seems like a misunderstanding, WebAssembly has nothing to do with PHP’s internal performance mechanisms. WASM is a compilation target, this means you can take code which needs to be compiled (like PHP’s core binary), and compile it to be run in a browser. PHP in WASM means developers can run actual, real, native PHP code in the user’s browser, without the user needing to have PHP installed locally, or nginx, etc…
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Because I always wanted to run PHP in the browser.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      You could do that, but the post here is in fact about running PHP on a server on top of a Wasm runtime. “At the edge” basically means “close to the user”, with the details left as an exercise to whoever is selling you their “edge.” In this case, it’s a Wasm runtime company.
- aeyes 2y ago
  This was solved 10 years ago with services like AppEngine in GCP and similar products in major cloud platforms, they all scale to zero.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    In GCP land I'd assume Cloud Run is a closer service. But yes, for full blown applications udually talking to a cache and a DB there are way more efficient and performant solutions already.
  - fhuici 2y ago
    Yes, though I'd like to point out that "scale to zero" is a loose definition to mean anything that can be transparently scaled to 0 whenever an app/service is idle, and then wake up when traffic to the service arrives once again. The problem in practice with Cloud Run (and similar products from other providers) is that it can take seconds or minutes for the platform to detect idleness, during which you're still paying, and then seconds to wake up -- during which users/clients have to wait for a response or possibly leave the service/site. For my taste, real scale to 0 would be: detection and scale to 0 within < 1 second of a idleness, and wakeup within an RTT, such that the mechanism is transparent to end users. As a shameless plug, this is what we do at kraft.cloud (based on years or research, LF OSS work, unikernels, a custom controller and overall non-negligible engineering effort).
jw1224 2y ago
The “edge” in this case is the browser (from a pure WASM standpoint, though I see these guys also offer a hosted serverless version too). For most general-purpose applications, there’s no point to WASM. But some apps may run specific functions which take a long time (e.g. bulk/batch processing), and being able to execute those tasks securely on the client side provides immediate feedback and better UX. That’s just one use case. Another is that WASM makes PHP portable, in the sense it can run in any web browser without the need for a back-end server. Lots of potential opportunities for distributing software which runs completely locally.
- inezk 2y ago
  I don't think edge in this case mean browser. I think edge in this case is more similar to a CDN node.
  - egeozcan 2y ago
    Yes, the browser is where you land when you fall off the edge :)
- ahofmann 2y ago
  Thank you for explaining. As a Web dev, who's using PHP since version 4, I'm still very confused why someone would consider running a CMS like WordPress on the client side, or at the "edge". I guess the good thing here is that someone spends (a lot of) energy in giving PHP new ways to get used by developers.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    This is what is referred to by "edge": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing
- csomar 2y ago
  The browser is not the "edge". The browser is the browser. Running WordPress in the browser makes exactly zero sense. Only exception if you are running a test instance.

tredre3 2y ago

In this context the edge is a fancy word to say "serverless". It just means that your PHP interpreter will be started on-demand on a node closer to your customer's request. So if your website receives no requests, it costs you nothing. And requests have less latency for the user. That's the theory anyway, in my experience reality is a lot more nuanced because the serverless node still has to reach a database and so on.

pjmlp 2y ago
PHP nowadays already has a JIT compiler and its own bytecode, no need for WebAssembly.
- jw1224 2y ago
  This seems like a misunderstanding, WebAssembly has nothing to do with PHP’s internal performance mechanisms. WASM is a compilation target, this means you can take code which needs to be compiled (like PHP’s core binary), and compile it to be run in a browser. PHP in WASM means developers can run actual, real, native PHP code in the user’s browser, without the user needing to have PHP installed locally, or nginx, etc…
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Because I always wanted to run PHP in the browser.
  - pavlov 2y ago
    You could do that, but the post here is in fact about running PHP on a server on top of a Wasm runtime. “At the edge” basically means “close to the user”, with the details left as an exercise to whoever is selling you their “edge.” In this case, it’s a Wasm runtime company.
aeyes 2y ago
This was solved 10 years ago with services like AppEngine in GCP and similar products in major cloud platforms, they all scale to zero.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  In GCP land I'd assume Cloud Run is a closer service. But yes, for full blown applications udually talking to a cache and a DB there are way more efficient and performant solutions already.
- fhuici 2y ago
  Yes, though I'd like to point out that "scale to zero" is a loose definition to mean anything that can be transparently scaled to 0 whenever an app/service is idle, and then wake up when traffic to the service arrives once again. The problem in practice with Cloud Run (and similar products from other providers) is that it can take seconds or minutes for the platform to detect idleness, during which you're still paying, and then seconds to wake up -- during which users/clients have to wait for a response or possibly leave the service/site. For my taste, real scale to 0 would be: detection and scale to 0 within < 1 second of a idleness, and wakeup within an RTT, such that the mechanism is transparent to end users. As a shameless plug, this is what we do at kraft.cloud (based on years or research, LF OSS work, unikernels, a custom controller and overall non-negligible engineering effort).

jw1224 2y ago

The “edge” in this case is the browser (from a pure WASM standpoint, though I see these guys also offer a hosted serverless version too). For most general-purpose applications, there’s no point to WASM. But some apps may run specific functions which take a long time (e.g. bulk/batch processing), and being able to execute those tasks securely on the client side provides immediate feedback and better UX. That’s just one use case. Another is that WASM makes PHP portable, in the sense it can run in any web browser without the need for a back-end server. Lots of potential opportunities for distributing software which runs completely locally.

inezk 2y ago
I don't think edge in this case mean browser. I think edge in this case is more similar to a CDN node.
- egeozcan 2y ago
  Yes, the browser is where you land when you fall off the edge :)
ahofmann 2y ago
Thank you for explaining. As a Web dev, who's using PHP since version 4, I'm still very confused why someone would consider running a CMS like WordPress on the client side, or at the "edge". I guess the good thing here is that someone spends (a lot of) energy in giving PHP new ways to get used by developers.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  This is what is referred to by "edge": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_computing
csomar 2y ago
The browser is not the "edge". The browser is the browser. Running WordPress in the browser makes exactly zero sense. Only exception if you are running a test instance.