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Hypothetically if Microsoft threw enough money at it, could they get C# to work natively in the browser ? Or does WASM make this unnecessary? I actually reall

Hypothetically if Microsoft threw enough money at it, could they get C# to work natively in the browser ? Or does WASM make this unnecessary? I actually really like Flutter Web, Google has done an amazing job with it. I built a small game for a friend, but it's not as customizable as an actual website coded in JavaScript. It appears they've taken a hybrid approach where you get both a JavaScript and a Wasm build. https://docs.flutter.dev/platform-integration/web/wasm https://docs.flutter.dev/platform-integration/web/wasm I feel like Unity in particular has really pushed the limits of what you can do in a browser. For example, I have a simple 3D game that performs just as well as the android build. As far as making a small game, it's very easy to get someone to open a link. The browser sandboxes every and protects you. It's near impossible to convince someone to download a binary, with good reason. One last question. Do you consider yourself to be a Computer Science pioneer ? Your literally responsible for the foundations of the modern web!

neonsunset 2y ago
It's unlikely to be a money problem (nor Microsoft cares that much about .NET to do so). WASM also makes it pretty much irrelevant. Current Mono-WASM solution works decently enough but is far from perfect. Hopefully NativeAOT-LLVM project gets released in the next couple of versions as it improves the performance and bundle size massively.
- BrendanEich 2y ago
  Right, wasm is the low energy path. IMO you should think about this problem-space of the Web as an evolutionary system, with costs weighting all the paths through a graph from current state to future state. MS throwing money at C# native VM (the CLR? Silverlight's DLR? lol) as second VM in browsers, with separate GCs bridged, incurring the write barrier overhead that I cited already? In all browsers, not just the ones MS can bribe to do the considerable work? No. C# compiled to WebAssembly? One GC, all good, perhaps some warm evolution is on order, but it is an incremental cost.

neonsunset 2y ago

It's unlikely to be a money problem (nor Microsoft cares that much about .NET to do so). WASM also makes it pretty much irrelevant. Current Mono-WASM solution works decently enough but is far from perfect. Hopefully NativeAOT-LLVM project gets released in the next couple of versions as it improves the performance and bundle size massively.

BrendanEich 2y ago
Right, wasm is the low energy path. IMO you should think about this problem-space of the Web as an evolutionary system, with costs weighting all the paths through a graph from current state to future state. MS throwing money at C# native VM (the CLR? Silverlight's DLR? lol) as second VM in browsers, with separate GCs bridged, incurring the write barrier overhead that I cited already? In all browsers, not just the ones MS can bribe to do the considerable work? No. C# compiled to WebAssembly? One GC, all good, perhaps some warm evolution is on order, but it is an incremental cost.