7 ms·

What do you mean, DOA? It's been in active use for years now. As far as I know, "2.0" is just a marketing term batching several extensions standardized since 1

What do you mean, DOA? It's been in active use for years now. As far as I know, "2.0" is just a marketing term batching several extensions standardized since 1.0 (and simplifying feature queries "are extensions X,Y,Z supported" to "is 2.0 supported"), not unlike what Vulkan does with their extensions.

cedws 1y ago
It’s not DOA, it just became everything except anything to do with “web.” The purpose it was invented for has been forgotten.
- krapp 1y ago
  The purpose it was invented for was not the web. WASM was designed from the beginning to be a platform-independent technology[0]. The HN crowd has just always been terminally myopic about this because it has "web" in the name. [0]https://learn-wasm.dev/tutorial/introduction/what-webassembly-is-not https://learn-wasm.dev/tutorial/introduction/what-webassembl...
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    It was definitely invented to make everyone happy after the NaCL/PNaCL vs asm.js political wars. We already have lots of bytecode formats.
  - titzer 1y ago
    Think of it like German names, where people are often named for where they came from. Berliner, Münchner, etc. WebAssembly is so named because it came from the web :)
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    > A common misconception is that WebAssembly can only run in web browsers. Although "Web" is part of its name, WebAssembly is not limited to browsers. It's designed to be a platform-independent technology that can run in various environments, including IoT devices, edge computing, artificial intelligence, game development, backend services, or cloud services. Its portable binary format allows it to execute efficiently across different platforms and architectures. I am not going to lie, I thought the same because of the name, too.
  - singularity2001 1y ago
    yeah the W assembly has nothing to do with web.
    - krapp 1y ago
      There's documentation from the people who created it stating as such, and it's weird how intransigent so many people here are about that fact. Yes, the "w" does stand for "web" and yes it was designed with the web in mind but no it was not designed exclusively or even primarily for the web and no it isn't DOA because DOM access from a browser isn't here yet, as demonstrated by all of the existing applications already using it.
  - eviks 1y ago
    > The purpose it was invented for was not the web > Its main goal is to enable high performance applications on the Web So it's not just the name
- adrian17 1y ago
  I don't know what you're trying to say. If you're talking about WASI, well personally I'm not interested in it and we're just using plain wasm in the browser. However, nothing in this linked post is about WASI specifically.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  On the contrary, the browser is the only place where it makes sense. Outside of the browser are only VC backed companies, pretending bytecode based distribution isn't something existing since 1958, with wins and losses, many of those were polyglot, supporting languages like C in bytecode was already done in 1989 with Architecture Neutral Distribution Format, and many other examples.
- Dabbling_Dion 1y ago
  [dead]
- dgb23 1y ago
  There are some highly competitive web applications that use Wasm and plenty of useful libraries. The web is definitely the primary use case.

cedws 1y ago

It’s not DOA, it just became everything except anything to do with “web.” The purpose it was invented for has been forgotten.

krapp 1y ago
The purpose it was invented for was not the web. WASM was designed from the beginning to be a platform-independent technology[0]. The HN crowd has just always been terminally myopic about this because it has "web" in the name. [0]https://learn-wasm.dev/tutorial/introduction/what-webassembly-is-not https://learn-wasm.dev/tutorial/introduction/what-webassembl...
- pjmlp 1y ago
  It was definitely invented to make everyone happy after the NaCL/PNaCL vs asm.js political wars. We already have lots of bytecode formats.
- titzer 1y ago
  Think of it like German names, where people are often named for where they came from. Berliner, Münchner, etc. WebAssembly is so named because it came from the web :)
- johnisgood 1y ago
  > A common misconception is that WebAssembly can only run in web browsers. Although "Web" is part of its name, WebAssembly is not limited to browsers. It's designed to be a platform-independent technology that can run in various environments, including IoT devices, edge computing, artificial intelligence, game development, backend services, or cloud services. Its portable binary format allows it to execute efficiently across different platforms and architectures. I am not going to lie, I thought the same because of the name, too.
- singularity2001 1y ago
  yeah the W assembly has nothing to do with web.
  - krapp 1y ago
    There's documentation from the people who created it stating as such, and it's weird how intransigent so many people here are about that fact. Yes, the "w" does stand for "web" and yes it was designed with the web in mind but no it was not designed exclusively or even primarily for the web and no it isn't DOA because DOM access from a browser isn't here yet, as demonstrated by all of the existing applications already using it.
- eviks 1y ago
  > The purpose it was invented for was not the web > Its main goal is to enable high performance applications on the Web So it's not just the name
adrian17 1y ago
I don't know what you're trying to say. If you're talking about WASI, well personally I'm not interested in it and we're just using plain wasm in the browser. However, nothing in this linked post is about WASI specifically.
pjmlp 1y ago
On the contrary, the browser is the only place where it makes sense. Outside of the browser are only VC backed companies, pretending bytecode based distribution isn't something existing since 1958, with wins and losses, many of those were polyglot, supporting languages like C in bytecode was already done in 1989 with Architecture Neutral Distribution Format, and many other examples.
Dabbling_Dion 1y ago
[dead]
dgb23 1y ago
There are some highly competitive web applications that use Wasm and plenty of useful libraries. The web is definitely the primary use case.