3 ms·

It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and

by jas39 2y ago

It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and loaded from the cloud as needed.

nephy 2y ago
WASM is slower than running JavaScript on V8 in almost all scenarios and will likely continue to be for a very long time. Also, many of us don’t want a compile step.
- zb3 2y ago
  While I don't want any compile step either (js should stay), I'm actually confused by your statement.. are there any benchmarks? Are you saying that for example v86 would run faster without wasm?
  - nephy 2y ago
    I think that would probably fall outside the norm. My information might be outdated, but I was under the impression that JavaScript usually wins in most algorithm benchmarks because the JIT is so good.
- peutetre 2y ago
  No, wasm has higher performance and lower memory usage. Here are two practical, real world examples: https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-app-for-more-than-8-000-device-types https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-... https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc
- jas39 2y ago
  That is a misconception; there is a cost of abstraction, although this cost may disappear if AI gets really smart.
wiseowise 2y ago
> It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and loaded from the cloud as needed. So now a huge swaths of use cases are going to be killed by this change. E.g. AdBlock, NewPipe and yt-dlp - how is that better? All of them (expect maybe AdBlock) rely on parsing incoming JS from YouTube which will be rendered obsolete by WebAssembly blob.

3 ms·

It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and

by jas39 2y ago

It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and loaded from the cloud as needed.

nephy 2y ago
WASM is slower than running JavaScript on V8 in almost all scenarios and will likely continue to be for a very long time. Also, many of us don’t want a compile step.
- zb3 2y ago
  While I don't want any compile step either (js should stay), I'm actually confused by your statement.. are there any benchmarks? Are you saying that for example v86 would run faster without wasm?
  - nephy 2y ago
    I think that would probably fall outside the norm. My information might be outdated, but I was under the impression that JavaScript usually wins in most algorithm benchmarks because the JIT is so good.
- peutetre 2y ago
  No, wasm has higher performance and lower memory usage. Here are two practical, real world examples: https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-app-for-more-than-8-000-device-types https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-prime-video-updates-its-... https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc
- jas39 2y ago
  That is a misconception; there is a cost of abstraction, although this cost may disappear if AI gets really smart.
wiseowise 2y ago
> It's a good idea, but a better idea would be to make the browser a virtual machine running wasm. HTML, SVG and everything else could be implemented in wasm, and loaded from the cloud as needed. So now a huge swaths of use cases are going to be killed by this change. E.g. AdBlock, NewPipe and yt-dlp - how is that better? All of them (expect maybe AdBlock) rely on parsing incoming JS from YouTube which will be rendered obsolete by WebAssembly blob.