7 ms·

A possible future of Python in the browser

149 points by milliams 2y ago

giancarlostoro 2y ago
I have mentioned it on HN before, but I strongly believe that bringing Python to the browser, especially via WASM, and going as far as bringing on a templating library, would allow Python to match things like C#'s Blazor, which honestly has been a productivity boost on web projects. I'm totally all-in on WASM over JavaScript, unless your back-end is also JS/TS then no objection. I could see Django benefitting greatly from being able to run template logic in-browser.
- MattDaEskimo 2y ago
  This wouldn't make sense. JavaScript offers all the utilities necessary, and operates with all web elements. Converting python code to WASM would cause even less performance than JavaScript. The only reason to do something like this is if you only know Python and refuse to use anything else.
  - holdenweb 2y ago
    i don't see a numpy equivalent in Javascript, and that's just the first module that came to mind that I know PyScript can run in the browser.
  - athanagor2 2y ago
    > The only reason to do something like this is if you only know Python and refuse to use anything else. The ignorance and prejudice of most developers are staggering. They simply think "Javascript is shit", and all their arguments boil down to jokes about NaN and the weird behavior of ==. JS is (by far) not a jewel of a PL but it's telling that those people don't know anything about the real cursed and weird parts of JS (such as: eval does not behave the same depending on how you call it...).
    - fragmede 2y ago
      You can dismiss their objections as childish, but people are gonna write in the language they want to (or are paid to) write in. If there's a large body of existing python code they'd have to rewrite in JavaScript, or use some python in the browser route for their purposes, why should we force other people to use typescript because some of us think it's better? of course, LLMs, with their nascent ability to translate code into different languages, makes the question of rewriting something in a different language more tractable, but it's still a hike.
      - amonroe805-2 2y ago
        I mean, these things aren’t static. Python may be the second most popular language (behind JS/TS) today, but what if elixir takes over 10 years from now? There is no need for browsers to implement every language-of-the-day. Additionally, browser JS adheres to a quite strict backwards compatibility requirements. Python can and does deprecate and remove APIs, and I would imagine the community would not like to lose that flexibility. WASM is probably the best bet here, in that it provides a well-specified low-level target, such that the door is open for other languages for anyone who is allergic to learning/using javascript.
        dangus 2y ago
        Or perhaps you've got it backwards: there's no reason for browsers to prevent anyone from implementing any language they want. JS and backwards compatibility gave me a chuckle...try hanging out on the web in IE11.
        pjaoko 2y ago
        What is the difference between the DOM API, a JavaScript engine and the JS language specification?
      - athanagor2 2y ago
        > You can dismiss their objections as childish, but people are gonna write in the language they want to (or are paid to) write in. If there's a large body of existing python code they'd have to rewrite in JavaScript, or use some python in the browser route for their purposes, why should we force other people to use typescript because some of us think it's better? An existing codebase can certainly be an obstacle in adopting a PL but I don't think that's the main motivation in practice. > of course, LLMs, with their nascent ability to translate code into different languages, makes the question of rewriting something in a different language more tractable, but it's still a hike. Entirely agree. In my current company there's quite a bit of reluctance to spend some bucks to have good tools and I resent it. Rewriting (quickly!) some Python into say, C++, would be absolutely great.
  - pphysch 2y ago
    How does WASM make less sense than the current paradigm of treating JS as "byte code for the browser"? Python is not that different from Typescript. Neither can be interpreted by the browser. Both can be compiled into JS or WASM to be run in the browser.
  - pedrocr 2y ago
    The web is the only platform where people routinely chide other people for wanting to use their favorite programming languages. For some reason not liking Javascript and wanting to use something else is offensive to a lot of people. In all the other platforms some language may dominate but others are still used and don't cause these reactions.
    - 1317 2y ago
      on other platforms, all languages are relatively equal, it's the same effort to use language a as it is to use language b, and you can get nice results with both vs on the web, javascript is built in, and you have to specifically go out of your way to use something else (which be a worse experience than the one that's already built in*) *idk, i don't have personal experience, but i think that's the reasoning at least
      - mdhb 2y ago
        The entire point here is that this is changing. Granted to various degrees. Running Python, Ruby or PHP in the browser requires shipping a interpreter compiled to WASM and is indeed a lot of overhead, however compare and contrast that with say C, Rust, Dart, C++, Kotlin or C# which all have dedicated WASM compilation story’s which ship native WebAssembly bytecode without the interpreter overhead. For a lot of those languages they are on an equal footing to JS in every non DOM manipulation context and only getting better overtime as more and more WASM proposals start to move through the standardisation process unlocking better performance and capabilities. I think in that particular light, it’s very hard to see JS holding the same privileged position on the web it traditionally has. A new generation of languages are emerging which are much much nicer to work with.
        wiseowise 2y ago
        > C, C++, Kotlin > much nicer to work with than JavaScript Glorified assembly, if war crime was a language and a marketing tool to promote JetBrains IDEs that barely works outside of JVM. Truly nice way to work!
  - DeathArrow 2y ago
    Why should Javascript have monopoly on manipulating the DOM? It makes no sense to me.
    - Izkata 2y ago
      I thought WASM intentionally didn't provide a way to manipulate the DOM? If I'm remembering right they'd still have to use javascript for part that anyway.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    You say that, but I can do anything you can do with JS to the DOM with Blazor using C#. If my backend is in C# I have no context switch between code syntax wise. I can even call JavaScript code.
- ashleyn 2y ago
  You could, theoretically, render django templates in the browser today. But you'll still need to contend with using a thin JS layer to access the browser dom. Mooting any real performance benefit, at least if you want accessibility and not a 00s-style flashblob of a page. AFAIK direct dom bindings for wasm aren't being taken seriously and may never really happen.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    That's perfectly fine, that's what Blazor does. I'm looking to see it become adopted by a project like Django. I think the more we see WASM being adopted by key web frameworks, the more innovation we'll see in the WASM space outside of just a new runtime someone made.
- austin-cheney 2y ago
  WASM is fine for original applications, like desktop applications, because a WASM application is everything plus the kitchen sink. WASM is a bad idea for web applications as a JavaScript replacement because it’s everything plus the kitchen sink. Most of time people advocating for this are people that cannot program JavaScript. Don’t feel bad about that though, because most people writing JavaScript cannot program JavaScript.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    I've build all types of JavaScript applications, little, medium and large, vanilla, react, vue, hell even ThreeJS, D3.js and many other libraries and frameworks... Nothing compares to how nicely integrated Blazor is. I don't have to waste my time "turning on my JavaScript brain" and thinking of all the nuances, I was just doing C# for the back-end logic, and I can continue using C# for the front-end. I can continue with the same mindset and skill set. It's drastically more productive. I can take any developer who has zero front-end experience but tons of C# experience and have them building very capable web applications, and nobody using them would tell the difference. WASM was birthed out of trying to make JavaScript even faster.
    - austin-cheney 2y ago
      > WASM was birthed out of trying to make JavaScript even faster. WASM was birthed as a Flash replacement, but ubiquitous to programming languages. It, according to its maintainers and originators, has nothing to do with JavaScript.
- lmm 2y ago
  > I have mentioned it on HN before, but I strongly believe that bringing Python to the browser, especially via WASM, and going as far as bringing on a templating library, would allow Python to match things like C#'s Blazor, which honestly has been a productivity boost on web projects. Scala.js runs in the browser in a way that actually works and feels first-class, I'd highly recommend it if you haven't tried it. Scala has a reputation for obtuse symbol-heavy code, but you don't have to write that way if you don't want to - most Python code translates directly into equivalent Scala, and there are libraries (particularly lihaoyi's efforts) designed to support this style.
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  The problem with WASM is that it can not manipulate the DOM. Why? I don't know. I really like Blazor but since it has to rely on Javascript hooks to work with the DOM it kind of make it slower when compared to a JS framework.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    To the end-developer it doesn't matter that JavaScript is hooked anywhere, the only time it matters is if that code is bugged and completely broken, or insanely low performance, which I really doubt.
dang 2y ago
[stub for offtopicness]
- tewmakr 2y ago
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- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
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- DaSHacka 2y ago
  > [stub for offtopicness] > [flagged] > [flagged] Oh HN, never change
  - offtopic__ 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    I'm grateful that you replied underneath the stub for offtopicness!
    - DaSHacka 2y ago
      of course, no better place to say it than here, after all
svilen_dobrev 2y ago
very interesting. So all the declarative stuff, like various type descriptions and preconditions and such, can be precompiled.. (and i am not talking about type-hints/annotations). Maybe some of the meta-programming stuff too. i was thinking some weeks ago that it may be time to "fork" python - as language - in a way to preserve the initial simplicity and clarity it did have and is losing faster and faster. But, nevermind. Will have to live with whatever there is. edit: looking at the code, some things might be optimized but no idea if these are on critical path (like, that switch-by sq_idx, or 6 lines.append.. ), or whether func-calls are as expensive in Spy as they are in Cpy. But anyway, squeezing few percents is not the point.. if one needs magnitudes.
- hoodchatham 2y ago
  The actual code example he made runs about 100 times faster in Spy/emscripten than in Pyodide.
- antocuni 2y ago
  (SPy author here) function calls in SPy are as cheap as in C. You can check by yourself seeing of the spy compiler translates the code to C in the (super-experimental) spy playground: https://antocuni.pyscriptapps.com/spy-playground/latest/ https://antocuni.pyscriptapps.com/spy-playground/latest/
- zahlman 2y ago
  >i was thinking some weeks ago that it may be time to "fork" python - as language - in a way to preserve the initial simplicity and clarity it did have and is losing faster and faster. I've had this thought, and seen others express it. The main problem is there is no general agreement on what should or shouldn't make the cut. I've sort-of designed a new language from scratch, but I haven't been able to convince myself to make time to implement anything significant, or even really discuss what I've already figured out in any detail. I do like Mr. Langa's idea about pre-computed ("@blue") code - although it doesn't strike me as particularly novel. (It's something I want to do in my own language, too - or rather, I have in mind a metaprogramming system, so you'd have macros that manipulate the AST and either insert a result when it's fully determined at compile time, or runtime code otherwise.)
ripped_britches 2y ago
I’m also super excited about wasm creating language democracy. I’m rooting for dart myself.
- hyperbolablabla 2y ago
  Never used dart until about a month ago for Flutter. Really loving it so far - like a better typescript. So many cool language features.
  - firejake308 2y ago
    In your opinion, why is Dart a better TypeScript? Interested to hear your view, because my experience was quite different. When I learned Dart, I was mostly annoyed because it was almost exactly the same as TypeScript, but just different enough that I had to look up how to do everything again. Like, I understand that Rust is different from other languages because it brings in a totally new approach to software development, which has its use cases. But when I used Dart, I just wondered why Flutter didn't just use TypeScript, since it looks basically the same to me.
    - mdhb 2y ago
      One of the really nice things about Dart in addition to the fact that it’s an AOT compiled language with truly excellent tooling and documentation is the fact that because it’s not a superset of JS it can skip a lot of the messy parts while keeping the best bits. One good example I like to point to is the idea of mixins. Take a look at how Dart does it here: https://dart.dev/language/mixins https://dart.dev/language/mixins Then take a look at TypeScript here: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/mixins.html https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/mixins.html You might also be interested in this https://dart.dev/resources/coming-from/js-to-dart https://dart.dev/resources/coming-from/js-to-dart
- Buttons840 2y ago
  I was once hoping that WASM would get direct access to the DOM APIs, but there doesn't seem to be any progress.
dimatura 2y ago
As someone that mainly codes in Python and only has rudimentary JS skills, I'm intrigued. The generative art pyscript demos mentioned in the blog post are really nice. Using decorator calls to "compile" chunks of python code seems like an increasingly popular trend in ML (and presumably other numerically intensive code) - e.g., numba, jax.jit and triton.
torben-friis 2y ago
I have a Node background so I might be biased but... Why would you want python in the browser? Like, I get the appeal of more languages beyond JavaScript for the frontend, but I'd have guessed this would mostly be attractive to people who like significantly different languages to js, like maybe something compiled and strongly typed. Python and Javascript seem to be in the same ballpark of "interpreted scripty language grown larger". I don't think moving to python would give me a different enough language to warrant the cost of switching.
- zoogeny 2y ago
  I hear what your are saying, but there is some advantage to having the same language in multiple places in the stack. One of the advantages of JavaScript is that it can be used both on the front-end and the server. Some people hate that and insist that "real" programmers use a "real" server language but that is not a reasoned take. There are pragmatic reasons to want the same language across the stack. And so it sometimes goes the other way. Java was used through a transpiler for the front-end for some of the classic Google apps (I don't know if that is still the case). So it makes some sense, for a Python heavy team, to consider the same approach. And with the growing support of WASM it is probably even easier than it was when it required transpilation to JavaScript. And since a lot of ML work is in Python there is undoubtedly growing interest.
- coldtea 2y ago
  It's for people with taste in scripting languages.
- deleted 2y ago
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- dangus 2y ago
  I personally find Python way easier to use and understand, and I have more experience with it. I wouldn't be "switching," I would just be writing in Python. I think having more language options would further democratize web development. I think the other points of view on this thread where people point out how ridiculous it would be to force you to use one specific language on the desktop or even on mobile are thought-provoking. If I can make iPhone apps with .NET [1] why not client-side browser code with Python? [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui?view=net-maui-9.0 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui?v...
supportengineer 2y ago
If my browser supports WebAssembly, I should be able to open my browser, forgo opening any actual web pages, and veer off into WebAssembly-land. From there perhaps there should be a package manager that lets me install packages (like Python, Java, Smalltalk, etc ) and switch to some sort of shell or launcher where I can enter a REPL for the selected language package. From there I could do anything.
- kibwen 2y ago
  If you don't want to open web pages then you wouldn't need to use a browser in the first place. WASM can run outside the context of a browser, so what you're asking for is a shell for running WASM apps.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > If you don't want to open web pages then you wouldn't need to use a browser in the first place. WASM can run outside the context of a browser, so what you're asking for is a shell for running WASM apps. No, because corporate wouldn't let me install that :(.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  Any examples of what you would “do”?
- nine_k 2y ago
  On one hand, the browser strives to be the universal OS shell, much like a Smalltalk environment before it, and a Lisp environment before that. Everything is scriptable, everything is inspectable, everything is written is a universal high-level language. The browser seems to have everything that's needed, and ChromeOS is basically built on that idea. The limiting factors though are performance and compatibility. Even with a JIT compiler, both JS and WASM are pretty wasteful, resource-wise. Because of that, you cannot just compile MS Excel to WASM; you'd have to bring half of Win32 APIs, DCOM, and tons of libraries to it, too. While technically it's not impossible, the result would be quite sluggish at best. And if you have to run native-code apps anyway, why your Python CLI shouldn't be a native app, too?
Terretta 2y ago
In the meantime: https://marimo.app/?mode=read https://marimo.app/?mode=read
- ambivalence 2y ago
  Wouldn't kill them to mention that all the heavy lifting is done by Pyodide.
rdedev 2y ago
Other projects that tries to achieve the same: RustPython and py2wasm So far my issue with pyiodide or other interpreted variants of python in wasm is the huge startup time especially if you need to install dependencies. The above projects i hope eventually reach a point where we can just compile everything
henglihong-jsu 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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nine_k 2y ago
Python is a fine language. It has a nice enough JIT compiler by now. Its structure is similar enough to JS to allow easy interop, and easy exposure of browser APIs exactly the way these APIs are exposed to JS. But the power of Python currently mostly lies in its being a glue language. Python easily and neatly wraps things like numpy, scipy, polars, pytorch, etc, all implemented in native code. Not being able to use these would be a major limitation. But being able to use these would be a colossal change to the browsers' capabilities, security model, and, well, purpose.
- ipsum2 2y ago
  The article mentions use of Numpy on web.
  - jcheng 2y ago
    Pyodide has numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas, and as of last month, even polars. https://github.com/pyodide/pyodide/pull/5282 https://github.com/pyodide/pyodide/pull/5282 Pyodide is far from a perfect CPython and even the packages it includes often have limitations you won't find when running natively. But there's definitely enough here to be interesting and even somewhat useful. Here's an interactive app written on Pyodide that uses astropy, numpy, and matplotlib: https://shinylive.io/py/examples/#orbit-simulation https://shinylive.io/py/examples/#orbit-simulation
gunian 2y ago
python in browser more of a pipe dream than me escaping slavery lmaooooo
deleted 2y ago
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cxr 2y ago
Author is right in their dismissive attitude of Pyodide, but their WASM-ward gaze is probably misplaced, too. Once you're talking about acceptability in terms of being "Python-like enough", you should really be considering a Python-like syntax for JS, which would suffice for a bunch of Python programmers (in particular those who only picked it up as a result of ill-considered advocacy by Python proponents who told them that e.g. Python is how science gets done).
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Maybe Nim isn't python-like enough to count, but it compiles to C or JavaScript, which makes it sort of relevant to pythonishness in the browser. Independently of its compilation flexibility, it's nice to work with. For example it was the first language that ever gave me compile error because there were cases that my switch statement didn't account for.
- threeducks 2y ago
  > it was the first language that ever gave me compile error because there were cases that my switch statement didn't account for. For C, you can use the switch -Wswitch-enum with GCC to get warnings and add -Werror to turn the warning into an error.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    The reason I was surprised is that it wasn't explicitly an enum type but rather a char (which in retrospect I suppose is sort of like an enum).
- digdugdirk 2y ago
  Have you used it for front-end via Javascript compilation? How well do you find it works for front end specifically? I've always been fascinated by the concept of Nim, but with a non-programming day job, I've never found the time to dive in to learning it well enough to reach my equivalent python skill level.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I spent a while messing around with https://github.com/ansiwave/nimwave https://github.com/ansiwave/nimwave, which I enjoyed but I haven't gotten very far. Though I've been avoiding the front end for so long, I don't know what reasonable feels like in that space anyway. My Nim journey was stalled by this bug in its nix toolchain: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/308593 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/308593. I guess that's the price we pay for straying from the beaten path.
DeathArrow 2y ago
Why can't regular Python code be compiled straight to WebAssembly?
- jessekv 2y ago
  The design of the language. Regular Python code cannot be compiled, unless cython or mypyc code is considered "regular".
  - incognito124 2y ago
    Is this the limitation of the current toolchain or is there some fundamental impossibility in the language itself so there can never be a (eg) .py -> ELF compiler?
JodieBenitez 2y ago
I write a lot of Python, and I like it very much. But when it comes to the browser, what I don't like is compilation/build steps (yes, that includes Vue/React/Whatever builds). And that's why even I who don't like javascript very much will still be using it vanilla-style even if a compile-your-python-to-browser-wasm ever takes off. That would still be nice to have some of those python libs to the browser though.
laurencerowe 2y ago
SPy is a cool experiment which we should applaud, though perhaps it would be helpful to compare to ShedSkin, Nuitka, or maybe Numba along with Cython if the eventual goal is compile everything to Wasm. I'd maybe quibble with "running natively on WebAssembly with speed in the same order of magnitude as Rust" given I expect that statement would be just as true if you replaced Rust on WebAssembly with the equivalent JavaScript. But ultimately while I understand the motivation - at the beginning of my career before I discovered Python I wanted to write command line scripts in PHP because that was what I knew! - I think it is ultimately a dead end since by breaking from the Python ecosystem you end up having to compete against JavaScript which is not really that far from Python and has an existing library ecosystem to plug into.
- ambivalence 2y ago
  > I'd maybe quibble with "running natively on WebAssembly with speed in the same order of magnitude as Rust" given I expect that statement would be just as true if you replaced Rust on WebAssembly with the equivalent JavaScript. This is incorrect. It's widely publicized that WebAssembly is often faster than JavaScript.
  - laurencerowe 2y ago
    While WebAssembly definitely has advantages in terms of faster startup time, throughput is the same order of magnitude as equivalent JavaScript, perhaps 30% faster unless you are using WebAssembly only features like SIMD. Of course the big advantage from using a language designed for lower level work is that you are far less likely to hit performance pitfalls. But if you write JavaScript as if it were C you tend to get very good performance. I am sceptical that SPy will manage to beat JavaScript performance wise on average. But I'm interested to see how they do in part because of their learnings could make JavaScript in WebAssembly faster. (WebAssembly has much faster startup than JS which makes per request isolation practical if JS in WASM gets fast enough.)
khimaros 2y ago
i'm curious how SPy compares with Mojo, apart from the license. are they trying to solve the same problems?
deleted 2y ago
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149 points by milliams 2y ago

I have mentioned it on HN before, but I strongly believe that bringing Python to the browser, especially via WASM, and going as far as bringing on a templating library, would allow Python to match things like C#'s Blazor, which honestly has been a productivity boost on web projects. I'm totally all-in on WASM over JavaScript, unless your back-end is also JS/TS then no objection. I could see Django benefitting greatly from being able to run template logic in-browser.

MattDaEskimo 2y ago
This wouldn't make sense. JavaScript offers all the utilities necessary, and operates with all web elements. Converting python code to WASM would cause even less performance than JavaScript. The only reason to do something like this is if you only know Python and refuse to use anything else.
- holdenweb 2y ago
  i don't see a numpy equivalent in Javascript, and that's just the first module that came to mind that I know PyScript can run in the browser.
- athanagor2 2y ago
  > The only reason to do something like this is if you only know Python and refuse to use anything else. The ignorance and prejudice of most developers are staggering. They simply think "Javascript is shit", and all their arguments boil down to jokes about NaN and the weird behavior of ==. JS is (by far) not a jewel of a PL but it's telling that those people don't know anything about the real cursed and weird parts of JS (such as: eval does not behave the same depending on how you call it...).
  - fragmede 2y ago
    You can dismiss their objections as childish, but people are gonna write in the language they want to (or are paid to) write in. If there's a large body of existing python code they'd have to rewrite in JavaScript, or use some python in the browser route for their purposes, why should we force other people to use typescript because some of us think it's better? of course, LLMs, with their nascent ability to translate code into different languages, makes the question of rewriting something in a different language more tractable, but it's still a hike.
    - amonroe805-2 2y ago
      I mean, these things aren’t static. Python may be the second most popular language (behind JS/TS) today, but what if elixir takes over 10 years from now? There is no need for browsers to implement every language-of-the-day. Additionally, browser JS adheres to a quite strict backwards compatibility requirements. Python can and does deprecate and remove APIs, and I would imagine the community would not like to lose that flexibility. WASM is probably the best bet here, in that it provides a well-specified low-level target, such that the door is open for other languages for anyone who is allergic to learning/using javascript.
      - dangus 2y ago
        Or perhaps you've got it backwards: there's no reason for browsers to prevent anyone from implementing any language they want. JS and backwards compatibility gave me a chuckle...try hanging out on the web in IE11.
        pjaoko 2y ago
        What is the difference between the DOM API, a JavaScript engine and the JS language specification?
    - athanagor2 2y ago
      > You can dismiss their objections as childish, but people are gonna write in the language they want to (or are paid to) write in. If there's a large body of existing python code they'd have to rewrite in JavaScript, or use some python in the browser route for their purposes, why should we force other people to use typescript because some of us think it's better? An existing codebase can certainly be an obstacle in adopting a PL but I don't think that's the main motivation in practice. > of course, LLMs, with their nascent ability to translate code into different languages, makes the question of rewriting something in a different language more tractable, but it's still a hike. Entirely agree. In my current company there's quite a bit of reluctance to spend some bucks to have good tools and I resent it. Rewriting (quickly!) some Python into say, C++, would be absolutely great.
- pphysch 2y ago
  How does WASM make less sense than the current paradigm of treating JS as "byte code for the browser"? Python is not that different from Typescript. Neither can be interpreted by the browser. Both can be compiled into JS or WASM to be run in the browser.
- pedrocr 2y ago
  The web is the only platform where people routinely chide other people for wanting to use their favorite programming languages. For some reason not liking Javascript and wanting to use something else is offensive to a lot of people. In all the other platforms some language may dominate but others are still used and don't cause these reactions.
  - 1317 2y ago
    on other platforms, all languages are relatively equal, it's the same effort to use language a as it is to use language b, and you can get nice results with both vs on the web, javascript is built in, and you have to specifically go out of your way to use something else (which be a worse experience than the one that's already built in*) *idk, i don't have personal experience, but i think that's the reasoning at least
    - mdhb 2y ago
      The entire point here is that this is changing. Granted to various degrees. Running Python, Ruby or PHP in the browser requires shipping a interpreter compiled to WASM and is indeed a lot of overhead, however compare and contrast that with say C, Rust, Dart, C++, Kotlin or C# which all have dedicated WASM compilation story’s which ship native WebAssembly bytecode without the interpreter overhead. For a lot of those languages they are on an equal footing to JS in every non DOM manipulation context and only getting better overtime as more and more WASM proposals start to move through the standardisation process unlocking better performance and capabilities. I think in that particular light, it’s very hard to see JS holding the same privileged position on the web it traditionally has. A new generation of languages are emerging which are much much nicer to work with.
      - wiseowise 2y ago
        > C, C++, Kotlin > much nicer to work with than JavaScript Glorified assembly, if war crime was a language and a marketing tool to promote JetBrains IDEs that barely works outside of JVM. Truly nice way to work!
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  Why should Javascript have monopoly on manipulating the DOM? It makes no sense to me.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    I thought WASM intentionally didn't provide a way to manipulate the DOM? If I'm remembering right they'd still have to use javascript for part that anyway.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  You say that, but I can do anything you can do with JS to the DOM with Blazor using C#. If my backend is in C# I have no context switch between code syntax wise. I can even call JavaScript code.
ashleyn 2y ago
You could, theoretically, render django templates in the browser today. But you'll still need to contend with using a thin JS layer to access the browser dom. Mooting any real performance benefit, at least if you want accessibility and not a 00s-style flashblob of a page. AFAIK direct dom bindings for wasm aren't being taken seriously and may never really happen.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  That's perfectly fine, that's what Blazor does. I'm looking to see it become adopted by a project like Django. I think the more we see WASM being adopted by key web frameworks, the more innovation we'll see in the WASM space outside of just a new runtime someone made.
austin-cheney 2y ago
WASM is fine for original applications, like desktop applications, because a WASM application is everything plus the kitchen sink. WASM is a bad idea for web applications as a JavaScript replacement because it’s everything plus the kitchen sink. Most of time people advocating for this are people that cannot program JavaScript. Don’t feel bad about that though, because most people writing JavaScript cannot program JavaScript.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I've build all types of JavaScript applications, little, medium and large, vanilla, react, vue, hell even ThreeJS, D3.js and many other libraries and frameworks... Nothing compares to how nicely integrated Blazor is. I don't have to waste my time "turning on my JavaScript brain" and thinking of all the nuances, I was just doing C# for the back-end logic, and I can continue using C# for the front-end. I can continue with the same mindset and skill set. It's drastically more productive. I can take any developer who has zero front-end experience but tons of C# experience and have them building very capable web applications, and nobody using them would tell the difference. WASM was birthed out of trying to make JavaScript even faster.
  - austin-cheney 2y ago
    > WASM was birthed out of trying to make JavaScript even faster. WASM was birthed as a Flash replacement, but ubiquitous to programming languages. It, according to its maintainers and originators, has nothing to do with JavaScript.
lmm 2y ago
> I have mentioned it on HN before, but I strongly believe that bringing Python to the browser, especially via WASM, and going as far as bringing on a templating library, would allow Python to match things like C#'s Blazor, which honestly has been a productivity boost on web projects. Scala.js runs in the browser in a way that actually works and feels first-class, I'd highly recommend it if you haven't tried it. Scala has a reputation for obtuse symbol-heavy code, but you don't have to write that way if you don't want to - most Python code translates directly into equivalent Scala, and there are libraries (particularly lihaoyi's efforts) designed to support this style.
DeathArrow 2y ago
The problem with WASM is that it can not manipulate the DOM. Why? I don't know. I really like Blazor but since it has to rely on Javascript hooks to work with the DOM it kind of make it slower when compared to a JS framework.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  To the end-developer it doesn't matter that JavaScript is hooked anywhere, the only time it matters is if that code is bugged and completely broken, or insanely low performance, which I really doubt.

dang 2y ago

[stub for offtopicness]

tewmakr 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
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DaSHacka 2y ago
> [stub for offtopicness] > [flagged] > [flagged] Oh HN, never change
- offtopic__ 2y ago
  [flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  I'm grateful that you replied underneath the stub for offtopicness!
  - DaSHacka 2y ago
    of course, no better place to say it than here, after all

svilen_dobrev 2y ago

very interesting. So all the declarative stuff, like various type descriptions and preconditions and such, can be precompiled.. (and i am not talking about type-hints/annotations). Maybe some of the meta-programming stuff too. i was thinking some weeks ago that it may be time to "fork" python - as language - in a way to preserve the initial simplicity and clarity it did have and is losing faster and faster. But, nevermind. Will have to live with whatever there is. edit: looking at the code, some things might be optimized but no idea if these are on critical path (like, that switch-by sq_idx, or 6 lines.append.. ), or whether func-calls are as expensive in Spy as they are in Cpy. But anyway, squeezing few percents is not the point.. if one needs magnitudes.

hoodchatham 2y ago
The actual code example he made runs about 100 times faster in Spy/emscripten than in Pyodide.
antocuni 2y ago
(SPy author here) function calls in SPy are as cheap as in C. You can check by yourself seeing of the spy compiler translates the code to C in the (super-experimental) spy playground: https://antocuni.pyscriptapps.com/spy-playground/latest/ https://antocuni.pyscriptapps.com/spy-playground/latest/
zahlman 2y ago
>i was thinking some weeks ago that it may be time to "fork" python - as language - in a way to preserve the initial simplicity and clarity it did have and is losing faster and faster. I've had this thought, and seen others express it. The main problem is there is no general agreement on what should or shouldn't make the cut. I've sort-of designed a new language from scratch, but I haven't been able to convince myself to make time to implement anything significant, or even really discuss what I've already figured out in any detail. I do like Mr. Langa's idea about pre-computed ("@blue") code - although it doesn't strike me as particularly novel. (It's something I want to do in my own language, too - or rather, I have in mind a metaprogramming system, so you'd have macros that manipulate the AST and either insert a result when it's fully determined at compile time, or runtime code otherwise.)

ripped_britches 2y ago

I’m also super excited about wasm creating language democracy. I’m rooting for dart myself.

hyperbolablabla 2y ago
Never used dart until about a month ago for Flutter. Really loving it so far - like a better typescript. So many cool language features.
- firejake308 2y ago
  In your opinion, why is Dart a better TypeScript? Interested to hear your view, because my experience was quite different. When I learned Dart, I was mostly annoyed because it was almost exactly the same as TypeScript, but just different enough that I had to look up how to do everything again. Like, I understand that Rust is different from other languages because it brings in a totally new approach to software development, which has its use cases. But when I used Dart, I just wondered why Flutter didn't just use TypeScript, since it looks basically the same to me.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    One of the really nice things about Dart in addition to the fact that it’s an AOT compiled language with truly excellent tooling and documentation is the fact that because it’s not a superset of JS it can skip a lot of the messy parts while keeping the best bits. One good example I like to point to is the idea of mixins. Take a look at how Dart does it here: https://dart.dev/language/mixins https://dart.dev/language/mixins Then take a look at TypeScript here: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/mixins.html https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/mixins.html You might also be interested in this https://dart.dev/resources/coming-from/js-to-dart https://dart.dev/resources/coming-from/js-to-dart
Buttons840 2y ago
I was once hoping that WASM would get direct access to the DOM APIs, but there doesn't seem to be any progress.

dimatura 2y ago

As someone that mainly codes in Python and only has rudimentary JS skills, I'm intrigued. The generative art pyscript demos mentioned in the blog post are really nice. Using decorator calls to "compile" chunks of python code seems like an increasingly popular trend in ML (and presumably other numerically intensive code) - e.g., numba, jax.jit and triton.

torben-friis 2y ago

I have a Node background so I might be biased but... Why would you want python in the browser? Like, I get the appeal of more languages beyond JavaScript for the frontend, but I'd have guessed this would mostly be attractive to people who like significantly different languages to js, like maybe something compiled and strongly typed. Python and Javascript seem to be in the same ballpark of "interpreted scripty language grown larger". I don't think moving to python would give me a different enough language to warrant the cost of switching.

zoogeny 2y ago
I hear what your are saying, but there is some advantage to having the same language in multiple places in the stack. One of the advantages of JavaScript is that it can be used both on the front-end and the server. Some people hate that and insist that "real" programmers use a "real" server language but that is not a reasoned take. There are pragmatic reasons to want the same language across the stack. And so it sometimes goes the other way. Java was used through a transpiler for the front-end for some of the classic Google apps (I don't know if that is still the case). So it makes some sense, for a Python heavy team, to consider the same approach. And with the growing support of WASM it is probably even easier than it was when it required transpilation to JavaScript. And since a lot of ML work is in Python there is undoubtedly growing interest.
coldtea 2y ago
It's for people with taste in scripting languages.
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dangus 2y ago
I personally find Python way easier to use and understand, and I have more experience with it. I wouldn't be "switching," I would just be writing in Python. I think having more language options would further democratize web development. I think the other points of view on this thread where people point out how ridiculous it would be to force you to use one specific language on the desktop or even on mobile are thought-provoking. If I can make iPhone apps with .NET [1] why not client-side browser code with Python? [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui?view=net-maui-9.0 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/what-is-maui?v...

supportengineer 2y ago

If my browser supports WebAssembly, I should be able to open my browser, forgo opening any actual web pages, and veer off into WebAssembly-land. From there perhaps there should be a package manager that lets me install packages (like Python, Java, Smalltalk, etc ) and switch to some sort of shell or launcher where I can enter a REPL for the selected language package. From there I could do anything.

kibwen 2y ago
If you don't want to open web pages then you wouldn't need to use a browser in the first place. WASM can run outside the context of a browser, so what you're asking for is a shell for running WASM apps.
- lmm 2y ago
  > If you don't want to open web pages then you wouldn't need to use a browser in the first place. WASM can run outside the context of a browser, so what you're asking for is a shell for running WASM apps. No, because corporate wouldn't let me install that :(.
deadbabe 2y ago
Any examples of what you would “do”?
nine_k 2y ago
On one hand, the browser strives to be the universal OS shell, much like a Smalltalk environment before it, and a Lisp environment before that. Everything is scriptable, everything is inspectable, everything is written is a universal high-level language. The browser seems to have everything that's needed, and ChromeOS is basically built on that idea. The limiting factors though are performance and compatibility. Even with a JIT compiler, both JS and WASM are pretty wasteful, resource-wise. Because of that, you cannot just compile MS Excel to WASM; you'd have to bring half of Win32 APIs, DCOM, and tons of libraries to it, too. While technically it's not impossible, the result would be quite sluggish at best. And if you have to run native-code apps anyway, why your Python CLI shouldn't be a native app, too?

Terretta 2y ago

In the meantime: https://marimo.app/?mode=read https://marimo.app/?mode=read

ambivalence 2y ago
Wouldn't kill them to mention that all the heavy lifting is done by Pyodide.

rdedev 2y ago

Other projects that tries to achieve the same: RustPython and py2wasm So far my issue with pyiodide or other interpreted variants of python in wasm is the huge startup time especially if you need to install dependencies. The above projects i hope eventually reach a point where we can just compile everything

henglihong-jsu 2y ago

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nine_k 2y ago

Python is a fine language. It has a nice enough JIT compiler by now. Its structure is similar enough to JS to allow easy interop, and easy exposure of browser APIs exactly the way these APIs are exposed to JS. But the power of Python currently mostly lies in its being a glue language. Python easily and neatly wraps things like numpy, scipy, polars, pytorch, etc, all implemented in native code. Not being able to use these would be a major limitation. But being able to use these would be a colossal change to the browsers' capabilities, security model, and, well, purpose.

ipsum2 2y ago
The article mentions use of Numpy on web.
- jcheng 2y ago
  Pyodide has numpy, scipy, matplotlib, pandas, and as of last month, even polars. https://github.com/pyodide/pyodide/pull/5282 https://github.com/pyodide/pyodide/pull/5282 Pyodide is far from a perfect CPython and even the packages it includes often have limitations you won't find when running natively. But there's definitely enough here to be interesting and even somewhat useful. Here's an interactive app written on Pyodide that uses astropy, numpy, and matplotlib: https://shinylive.io/py/examples/#orbit-simulation https://shinylive.io/py/examples/#orbit-simulation

gunian 2y ago

python in browser more of a pipe dream than me escaping slavery lmaooooo

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cxr 2y ago

Author is right in their dismissive attitude of Pyodide, but their WASM-ward gaze is probably misplaced, too. Once you're talking about acceptability in terms of being "Python-like enough", you should really be considering a Python-like syntax for JS, which would suffice for a bunch of Python programmers (in particular those who only picked it up as a result of ill-considered advocacy by Python proponents who told them that e.g. Python is how science gets done).

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

Maybe Nim isn't python-like enough to count, but it compiles to C or JavaScript, which makes it sort of relevant to pythonishness in the browser. Independently of its compilation flexibility, it's nice to work with. For example it was the first language that ever gave me compile error because there were cases that my switch statement didn't account for.

threeducks 2y ago
> it was the first language that ever gave me compile error because there were cases that my switch statement didn't account for. For C, you can use the switch -Wswitch-enum with GCC to get warnings and add -Werror to turn the warning into an error.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  The reason I was surprised is that it wasn't explicitly an enum type but rather a char (which in retrospect I suppose is sort of like an enum).
digdugdirk 2y ago
Have you used it for front-end via Javascript compilation? How well do you find it works for front end specifically? I've always been fascinated by the concept of Nim, but with a non-programming day job, I've never found the time to dive in to learning it well enough to reach my equivalent python skill level.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I spent a while messing around with https://github.com/ansiwave/nimwave https://github.com/ansiwave/nimwave, which I enjoyed but I haven't gotten very far. Though I've been avoiding the front end for so long, I don't know what reasonable feels like in that space anyway. My Nim journey was stalled by this bug in its nix toolchain: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/308593 https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/308593. I guess that's the price we pay for straying from the beaten path.

DeathArrow 2y ago

Why can't regular Python code be compiled straight to WebAssembly?

jessekv 2y ago
The design of the language. Regular Python code cannot be compiled, unless cython or mypyc code is considered "regular".
- incognito124 2y ago
  Is this the limitation of the current toolchain or is there some fundamental impossibility in the language itself so there can never be a (eg) .py -> ELF compiler?

JodieBenitez 2y ago

I write a lot of Python, and I like it very much. But when it comes to the browser, what I don't like is compilation/build steps (yes, that includes Vue/React/Whatever builds). And that's why even I who don't like javascript very much will still be using it vanilla-style even if a compile-your-python-to-browser-wasm ever takes off. That would still be nice to have some of those python libs to the browser though.

laurencerowe 2y ago

SPy is a cool experiment which we should applaud, though perhaps it would be helpful to compare to ShedSkin, Nuitka, or maybe Numba along with Cython if the eventual goal is compile everything to Wasm. I'd maybe quibble with "running natively on WebAssembly with speed in the same order of magnitude as Rust" given I expect that statement would be just as true if you replaced Rust on WebAssembly with the equivalent JavaScript. But ultimately while I understand the motivation - at the beginning of my career before I discovered Python I wanted to write command line scripts in PHP because that was what I knew! - I think it is ultimately a dead end since by breaking from the Python ecosystem you end up having to compete against JavaScript which is not really that far from Python and has an existing library ecosystem to plug into.

ambivalence 2y ago
> I'd maybe quibble with "running natively on WebAssembly with speed in the same order of magnitude as Rust" given I expect that statement would be just as true if you replaced Rust on WebAssembly with the equivalent JavaScript. This is incorrect. It's widely publicized that WebAssembly is often faster than JavaScript.
- laurencerowe 2y ago
  While WebAssembly definitely has advantages in terms of faster startup time, throughput is the same order of magnitude as equivalent JavaScript, perhaps 30% faster unless you are using WebAssembly only features like SIMD. Of course the big advantage from using a language designed for lower level work is that you are far less likely to hit performance pitfalls. But if you write JavaScript as if it were C you tend to get very good performance. I am sceptical that SPy will manage to beat JavaScript performance wise on average. But I'm interested to see how they do in part because of their learnings could make JavaScript in WebAssembly faster. (WebAssembly has much faster startup than JS which makes per request isolation practical if JS in WASM gets fast enough.)

khimaros 2y ago

i'm curious how SPy compares with Mojo, apart from the license. are they trying to solve the same problems?

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