5 ms·

Cool release! I've yet to personally find a good use case for wasm in any project, kind of the same way I'm not quite sure what to do with a bunch of Raspberry

Cool release! I've yet to personally find a good use case for wasm in any project, kind of the same way I'm not quite sure what to do with a bunch of Raspberry Pis It fills a need, I just don't know who/what has that need. Example: Say I write a bunch of Rust async projects for fun. Scraping APIs, etc. How/why would I choose wasm/wasmer to do that instead? I'd do it in Rust (awkwardly/in some specific non-standard way) to compile to wasm to then run in wasmer? To what benefit? Ok, that's not a good usecase/example So what is?...

crabmusket 2y ago
Take that API scraping script example. Imagine next you want to build a platform where you run code written by your users who want to e.g. scrape APIs. Think ParseHub I guess? Zapier is another good example. You'd let them write in Rust or some other language that can target WASM, then you'd run the WASM blobs in a controlled sandboxed execution environment in your platform.
- Groxx 2y ago
  So basically: what every single platform with plugins should be doing to protect their users. Or similar via some other language that allows sandboxing, e.g. Lua.
  - lll-o-lll 2y ago
    Yeah, but the plugins can be written in Rust! OK, OK, it’s a bad example. WASM is language agnostic though, so as more languages can target WASM, then the possible advantage is programming language agnosticism. If I have some code, I don’t have to re-write it in Lua.
  - crabmusket 2y ago
    Yes, that's right. It's just another option that lets you do that in a different (better?) way, and doesn't force all your users to write Lua.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  yea https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-wasi-on-workers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-wasi-on-workers/ and such.
dgfitz 2y ago
I cross-compile a native qt app in windows, Mac, and Linux variants. It’s pretty neat to see it compile in wasm as well.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
It probably makes sense if you're running untrusted code or handling untrusted data, or running code that was written after the rest of your app So for a solo dev it doesn't add much, but for a web browser or something that needs plugins it could make a lot of sense.
- MuffinFlavored 2y ago
  > It probably makes sense if you're running untrusted code or handling untrusted data I never understood this because... I feel like wasm (the standard) is an empty box and a lot of runtimes help you attach things to it / make it useful (able to read/write to filesystem, call the Internet, etc.)
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  history tells us, that usecase will go out the window as soon as the usual suspects do their usual standards capture by implementation to support something or another related to advertising attribution.
Starlevel004 2y ago
WASM has two primary usages: 1) Making canvas webapps with unblockable ads built-in 2) Downloading and running random blobs of other people's code in a sandbox
- taberiand 2y ago
  To be fair, a rock-solid sandbox with extremely well defined and host controlled ingress/egress in a tiny package sounds absolutely fantastic
  - api 2y ago
    That’s what it is.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    that would have been implement in something like forward only language like ebpf. wasm is just an outgrown hack that people are hopping will be that safe sandbox and solve all JavaScript problems. do not fool yourself with this temporary feature. wasm was first for js performance. secondly for portability. and third and accidentally for sandbox.
    - mrugiero 2y ago
      > that would have been implement in something like forward only language like ebpf. wasm is just an outgrown hack that people are hopping will be that safe sandbox and solve all JavaScript problems. It's funny that every time an article on new functionality for eBPF appears in LWN everybody is like "why don't they just use WASM???". More seriously, a forward only language is by definition too strict for the general case of sandboxing, unless you mean using it only for hooking the syscalls rather than as a target for your program. In particular, the Linux implementation caps your execution to 1M instructions, which is not a lot for something you'd want on your browser.
sroussey 2y ago
ONNX has a WASM backend for running models in a browser. It’s what transformer.js (from HuggingFace) uses behind the scenes.
xn 2y ago
I've used wasm to write web applications in Go that run in the browser, both HTML applications (https://github.com/octoberswimmer/masc https://github.com/octoberswimmer/masc) and TUI apps using xterm.js (https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/pull/887 https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/pull/887).
LSRegression 2y ago
A toy project, but I'm working on a Scrabble clone for my mother to play. There's singleplayer against an AI, and then multiplayer against other people (myself, mostly). Multiplayer needs a server backend with all the game logic which I have programmed in Rust, but there's no reason I can't have the game logic for singleplayer running entirely in the browser. By compiling my backend code to WASM I basically do that - the client can use either a client-side 'server' or connect to a real server. The UI code itself is unchanged in either case. I suppose the need in this case is that I have code written in a language other than JS and I want to run it in a browser; inversely I could have written the entire project in JS and hosted my backend server on say Node.
- globalnode 2y ago
  > Multiplayer needs a server backend Did you mean single player? Although perhaps I'm just old and thinking about this in a strange way. And can I clarify.. your scrabble app is web based already right? connecting to a rust web server for the game logic? And you want to embed that server by compiling to wasm? I probably should go read up on how this works.
  - nl 2y ago
    Not the OP, but most web-based multiplayer games use a server backend to communicate between the multiple players. > connecting to a rust web server for the game logic? And you want to embed that server by compiling to wasm? I would assume so, and it being in WASM means they can use the exact same binary code on the server and in the webbrowser. You could of course do the same thing by writing in Javascript (running in Node on the server or in the browser) but then you are in JS instead of Rust.
    - globalnode 2y ago
      Thank you, that clears it up for me. Tech has changed a lot since I was exposed to web programming.
- tricked 2y ago
simonask 2y ago
I’m using WASM as the modding interface in my game. (I’m using wasmtime from Rust, but same principle.) Main benefits are isolation, binary portability, and hot reload.
colordrops 2y ago
Everyone else has answered about WASM, so I'll answer about raspberry pi. I've got 5 of them. One is running Home Assistant for all my home automation and camera recording. One is running a quadruped that I built. And three are connected to three sets of speakers around the house running a home-rolled Sonos-like setup so I can stream the same music all around the house from my phone.
- MuffinFlavored 2y ago
  Cool! Thanks! I've got none of that.
csomar 2y ago
I think the biggest company using wasm in production is figma (though there might be others). Otherwise, here is an example where wasm shines. Say you have an editor (rvim) and you want to support plugins. Usually, you’ll have a language interpreter and ask developers to develop in this language. With wasm, you can give them the freedom to use whatever stack they want. Then you expose an interface for their wasm artifacts. This abstract the host OS away. Another example is game mods/plugins.
- peutetre 2y ago
  > I think the biggest company using wasm in production is figma (though there might be others) Amazon uses Rust to wasm for the Prime video app and Google uses Java to wasm for Google Sheets. Both get higher performance and lower memory usage versus JavaScript: 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 Abode uses wasm in the web based version of Photoshop: https://medium.com/@addyosmani/photoshop-is-now-on-the-web-38d70954365a https://medium.com/@addyosmani/photoshop-is-now-on-the-web-3...
0points 2y ago
Wasm could be a handy way of letting users mod your app using their choice of programming language that can compile to wasm. Compare with how lua is used.

crabmusket 2y ago

Take that API scraping script example. Imagine next you want to build a platform where you run code written by your users who want to e.g. scrape APIs. Think ParseHub I guess? Zapier is another good example. You'd let them write in Rust or some other language that can target WASM, then you'd run the WASM blobs in a controlled sandboxed execution environment in your platform.

Groxx 2y ago
So basically: what every single platform with plugins should be doing to protect their users. Or similar via some other language that allows sandboxing, e.g. Lua.
- lll-o-lll 2y ago
  Yeah, but the plugins can be written in Rust! OK, OK, it’s a bad example. WASM is language agnostic though, so as more languages can target WASM, then the possible advantage is programming language agnosticism. If I have some code, I don’t have to re-write it in Lua.
- crabmusket 2y ago
  Yes, that's right. It's just another option that lets you do that in a different (better?) way, and doesn't force all your users to write Lua.
iknowstuff 2y ago
yea https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-wasi-on-workers/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-wasi-on-workers/ and such.

dgfitz 2y ago

I cross-compile a native qt app in windows, Mac, and Linux variants. It’s pretty neat to see it compile in wasm as well.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

It probably makes sense if you're running untrusted code or handling untrusted data, or running code that was written after the rest of your app So for a solo dev it doesn't add much, but for a web browser or something that needs plugins it could make a lot of sense.

MuffinFlavored 2y ago
> It probably makes sense if you're running untrusted code or handling untrusted data I never understood this because... I feel like wasm (the standard) is an empty box and a lot of runtimes help you attach things to it / make it useful (able to read/write to filesystem, call the Internet, etc.)
1oooqooq 2y ago
history tells us, that usecase will go out the window as soon as the usual suspects do their usual standards capture by implementation to support something or another related to advertising attribution.

Starlevel004 2y ago

WASM has two primary usages: 1) Making canvas webapps with unblockable ads built-in 2) Downloading and running random blobs of other people's code in a sandbox

taberiand 2y ago
To be fair, a rock-solid sandbox with extremely well defined and host controlled ingress/egress in a tiny package sounds absolutely fantastic
- api 2y ago
  That’s what it is.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  that would have been implement in something like forward only language like ebpf. wasm is just an outgrown hack that people are hopping will be that safe sandbox and solve all JavaScript problems. do not fool yourself with this temporary feature. wasm was first for js performance. secondly for portability. and third and accidentally for sandbox.
  - mrugiero 2y ago
    > that would have been implement in something like forward only language like ebpf. wasm is just an outgrown hack that people are hopping will be that safe sandbox and solve all JavaScript problems. It's funny that every time an article on new functionality for eBPF appears in LWN everybody is like "why don't they just use WASM???". More seriously, a forward only language is by definition too strict for the general case of sandboxing, unless you mean using it only for hooking the syscalls rather than as a target for your program. In particular, the Linux implementation caps your execution to 1M instructions, which is not a lot for something you'd want on your browser.

sroussey 2y ago

ONNX has a WASM backend for running models in a browser. It’s what transformer.js (from HuggingFace) uses behind the scenes.

xn 2y ago

I've used wasm to write web applications in Go that run in the browser, both HTML applications (https://github.com/octoberswimmer/masc https://github.com/octoberswimmer/masc) and TUI apps using xterm.js (https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/pull/887 https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/pull/887).

LSRegression 2y ago

A toy project, but I'm working on a Scrabble clone for my mother to play. There's singleplayer against an AI, and then multiplayer against other people (myself, mostly). Multiplayer needs a server backend with all the game logic which I have programmed in Rust, but there's no reason I can't have the game logic for singleplayer running entirely in the browser. By compiling my backend code to WASM I basically do that - the client can use either a client-side 'server' or connect to a real server. The UI code itself is unchanged in either case. I suppose the need in this case is that I have code written in a language other than JS and I want to run it in a browser; inversely I could have written the entire project in JS and hosted my backend server on say Node.

globalnode 2y ago
> Multiplayer needs a server backend Did you mean single player? Although perhaps I'm just old and thinking about this in a strange way. And can I clarify.. your scrabble app is web based already right? connecting to a rust web server for the game logic? And you want to embed that server by compiling to wasm? I probably should go read up on how this works.
- nl 2y ago
  Not the OP, but most web-based multiplayer games use a server backend to communicate between the multiple players. > connecting to a rust web server for the game logic? And you want to embed that server by compiling to wasm? I would assume so, and it being in WASM means they can use the exact same binary code on the server and in the webbrowser. You could of course do the same thing by writing in Javascript (running in Node on the server or in the browser) but then you are in JS instead of Rust.
  - globalnode 2y ago
    Thank you, that clears it up for me. Tech has changed a lot since I was exposed to web programming.
tricked 2y ago

simonask 2y ago

I’m using WASM as the modding interface in my game. (I’m using wasmtime from Rust, but same principle.) Main benefits are isolation, binary portability, and hot reload.

colordrops 2y ago

Everyone else has answered about WASM, so I'll answer about raspberry pi. I've got 5 of them. One is running Home Assistant for all my home automation and camera recording. One is running a quadruped that I built. And three are connected to three sets of speakers around the house running a home-rolled Sonos-like setup so I can stream the same music all around the house from my phone.

MuffinFlavored 2y ago
Cool! Thanks! I've got none of that.

csomar 2y ago

I think the biggest company using wasm in production is figma (though there might be others). Otherwise, here is an example where wasm shines. Say you have an editor (rvim) and you want to support plugins. Usually, you’ll have a language interpreter and ask developers to develop in this language. With wasm, you can give them the freedom to use whatever stack they want. Then you expose an interface for their wasm artifacts. This abstract the host OS away. Another example is game mods/plugins.

peutetre 2y ago
> I think the biggest company using wasm in production is figma (though there might be others) Amazon uses Rust to wasm for the Prime video app and Google uses Java to wasm for Google Sheets. Both get higher performance and lower memory usage versus JavaScript: 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 Abode uses wasm in the web based version of Photoshop: https://medium.com/@addyosmani/photoshop-is-now-on-the-web-38d70954365a https://medium.com/@addyosmani/photoshop-is-now-on-the-web-3...

0points 2y ago

Wasm could be a handy way of letting users mod your app using their choice of programming language that can compile to wasm. Compare with how lua is used.