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JavaScript will be killed off by WebAssembly. Zombie JavaScript will be reduced to being glue code and then not even that.

yen223 2y ago
JavaScript will be killed off by webassembly for about 5 years now
- peutetre 2y ago
  The difference lately is the number of tools that are now in place for WebAssembly development and the new extensions to WebAssembly (WasmGC, Memory64, etc.). Despite 28 years of effort at optimization, JavaScript is outperformed by WebAssembly. There's not much coming back from that: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi... 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
  - liontwist 2y ago
    ?? JavaScript was outperformed by every language since it was introduced. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what people put in their web pages.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      But now JavaScript is no longer the privileged language in the browser. With WebAssembly every language runs in the browser and runs better.
      - liontwist 2y ago
        And what will prove that is adoption. As others have said, that has been “just around the corner” for years.
  - yoelhacks 2y ago
    Javascript is outperformed by WebAssembly in the sense that it runs faster. A lot of things that bring a lot of value to a lot of people are still much, much faster to build via the JS / TS ecosystem. It absolutely makes sense that calculation-heavy workloads will be ported to WASM, but there's a lot more to building an app.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      > but there's a lot more to building an app. Like what? Visual UI designers? WebAssembly's got you covered: https://platform.uno/blog/uno-platform-studio-featuring-hot-design/ https://platform.uno/blog/uno-platform-studio-featuring-hot-... Running Visual Basic in a C# application compiled to WebAssembly? Sure, why not: https://bandysc.github.io/AvaloniaVisualBasic6/ https://bandysc.github.io/AvaloniaVisualBasic6/
spacebanana7 2y ago
Network effects are very strong for languages. Better query languages than SQL could exist, but there's so much existing code and expertise out there that it's not worth the effort. Better backend languages than Java can & do exist but don't have the same enterprise popularity. Developers, projects and companies have an immense incentives to target the most popular programming language.
- peutetre 2y ago
  JavaScript's one advantage was that it was the privileged language in the browser. It has lost that now. JavaScript has entered its Walking Dead phase. It will gradually be displaced by all languages compiling to WebAssembly.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    JavaScript’s main advantage is being commonly familiar to most software engineers. The English language similarly lost its position as the preeminent imperial language a long time ago, so too with Latin & Rome. It takes a long time for a popular language to die because everyone wants to speak what everybody else speaks.
  - saulpw 2y ago
    WASM has a lot of shortcomings. You can't even update the DOM without doing a worker dance.
NohatCoder 2y ago
The Webassembly dev experience is awful, and it needs to be glued together with JavaScript anyway. 99% of web code doesn't care about the performance difference, and anything GUI is wasting more time jumping back and forth to JavaScript to save any time at all.
- peutetre 2y ago
  > The Webassembly dev experience is awful It really isn't. Wasm is just a compilation target now.
em-bee 2y ago
only after they make DOM access easier. see previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955488

yen223 2y ago

JavaScript will be killed off by webassembly for about 5 years now

peutetre 2y ago
The difference lately is the number of tools that are now in place for WebAssembly development and the new extensions to WebAssembly (WasmGC, Memory64, etc.). Despite 28 years of effort at optimization, JavaScript is outperformed by WebAssembly. There's not much coming back from that: https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-visualizer-with-webassembly/ https://jordaneldredge.com/blog/speeding-up-winamps-music-vi... 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
- liontwist 2y ago
  ?? JavaScript was outperformed by every language since it was introduced. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what people put in their web pages.
  - peutetre 2y ago
    But now JavaScript is no longer the privileged language in the browser. With WebAssembly every language runs in the browser and runs better.
    - liontwist 2y ago
      And what will prove that is adoption. As others have said, that has been “just around the corner” for years.
- yoelhacks 2y ago
  Javascript is outperformed by WebAssembly in the sense that it runs faster. A lot of things that bring a lot of value to a lot of people are still much, much faster to build via the JS / TS ecosystem. It absolutely makes sense that calculation-heavy workloads will be ported to WASM, but there's a lot more to building an app.
  - peutetre 2y ago
    > but there's a lot more to building an app. Like what? Visual UI designers? WebAssembly's got you covered: https://platform.uno/blog/uno-platform-studio-featuring-hot-design/ https://platform.uno/blog/uno-platform-studio-featuring-hot-... Running Visual Basic in a C# application compiled to WebAssembly? Sure, why not: https://bandysc.github.io/AvaloniaVisualBasic6/ https://bandysc.github.io/AvaloniaVisualBasic6/

spacebanana7 2y ago

Network effects are very strong for languages. Better query languages than SQL could exist, but there's so much existing code and expertise out there that it's not worth the effort. Better backend languages than Java can & do exist but don't have the same enterprise popularity. Developers, projects and companies have an immense incentives to target the most popular programming language.

peutetre 2y ago
JavaScript's one advantage was that it was the privileged language in the browser. It has lost that now. JavaScript has entered its Walking Dead phase. It will gradually be displaced by all languages compiling to WebAssembly.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  JavaScript’s main advantage is being commonly familiar to most software engineers. The English language similarly lost its position as the preeminent imperial language a long time ago, so too with Latin & Rome. It takes a long time for a popular language to die because everyone wants to speak what everybody else speaks.
- saulpw 2y ago
  WASM has a lot of shortcomings. You can't even update the DOM without doing a worker dance.

NohatCoder 2y ago

The Webassembly dev experience is awful, and it needs to be glued together with JavaScript anyway. 99% of web code doesn't care about the performance difference, and anything GUI is wasting more time jumping back and forth to JavaScript to save any time at all.

peutetre 2y ago
> The Webassembly dev experience is awful It really isn't. Wasm is just a compilation target now.

em-bee 2y ago

only after they make DOM access easier. see previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41955488