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Oh dear god no. Form Validation is what JavaScript was meant for. Do we really need to download >1MB wasm module so you can do a regex? WASM should be left to

Oh dear god no. Form Validation is what JavaScript was meant for. Do we really need to download >1MB wasm module so you can do a regex? WASM should be left to things like IPC/Canvas/WebGPU stuff, not things easily done with document.querySelector No offense, but this is using a bomb to kill a fly. I know it says this is just a demo but people will find this and do this thinking it’s normal.

milliams 1y ago
I just compiled the code provided in the article and the compiled WASM module is 22kb. Not saying that it makes it the right solution, but a 45× difference is not insignificant.
- remram 1y ago
  But the example code doesn't do much validation. If you did want to use a regex, you would have to compile and bundle the regex crate...
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    And what kind of form validation are you going to do with a regular expression? E-mail addresses like every other fool? (This is a the best to reject perfectly valid addresses because you baked unjustified assumptions in you regex)
    - porridgeraisin 1y ago
      For what it's worth, the inbuilt HTML5 validation that implementw input type=email does have a regex in the spec. https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#email-state-(type=email) https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#email-state-(type=email) /^[a-zA-Z0-9.!#$%&'*+\/=?^_`{|}~-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?)*$/ But it is true that you can implement it with a FSM(which is what firefox does). Webkit uses a regex as well I think.
      - drowsspa 1y ago
        Yeah, for all intents and purposes that's the spec for emails now
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        TIL thanks.
    - zoechi 1y ago
      The bigger and more complex the application, the less is the effect of this.
    - remram 1y ago
      Me? None. I'm not the one proposing the use of Rust and WASM for form validation. What kind of validation are you going to do without a regular expression?
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        > What kind of validation are you going to do without a regular expression? Actual form validation… I can't even think of a single kind of form validation where a regex would help…
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    With `regex-lite` I got under 100,000 bytes on the email regex in the sibling comment. Not great, not terrible.
qoez 1y ago
Once you compile it to wasm and dead code analysis is applied and notices that only a fraction of whatever libraries you're using is necessary for form validation the code tends to be a lot less than what you'd have if you used non dead code analyzed pure JS.
- graypegg 1y ago
  Well, if we were implementing the equivalent in JS, we'd also use https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputElement/checkValidity https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputEl... just like this. I think it would maybe be a few lines of javascript at most to do exactly what this is doing. 400ish bytes? Of course there's always the argument that you'd add more javascript to "framework-ize" this a bit more, but the rust code is just targeting the DOM with IDs, so I don't think it's fair to compare it to any "framework-y" solution.
madduci 1y ago
Same with some JavaScript frameworks. I need to download 700kb+ JS files just to perform some fancy stuff.
- timeon 1y ago
  Also Tailwind. Obese HTML just to avoid css.
jpdenford 1y ago
The author said the following > I’m using form validation as a placeholder. It shows all the crucial aspects to use WASM instead of JS, like wiring up DOM events to Rust functions, and then reacting to those events.
_mlbt 1y ago
You can actually do a lot of form validation without even using JavaScript. HTML and CSS are capable of handling many common form validation needs... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Extensions/Forms/Form_validation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_developme...

milliams 1y ago

I just compiled the code provided in the article and the compiled WASM module is 22kb. Not saying that it makes it the right solution, but a 45× difference is not insignificant.

remram 1y ago
But the example code doesn't do much validation. If you did want to use a regex, you would have to compile and bundle the regex crate...
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  And what kind of form validation are you going to do with a regular expression? E-mail addresses like every other fool? (This is a the best to reject perfectly valid addresses because you baked unjustified assumptions in you regex)
  - porridgeraisin 1y ago
    For what it's worth, the inbuilt HTML5 validation that implementw input type=email does have a regex in the spec. https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#email-state-(type=email) https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#email-state-(type=email) /^[a-zA-Z0-9.!#$%&'*+\/=?^_`{|}~-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?)*$/ But it is true that you can implement it with a FSM(which is what firefox does). Webkit uses a regex as well I think.
    - drowsspa 1y ago
      Yeah, for all intents and purposes that's the spec for emails now
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      TIL thanks.
  - zoechi 1y ago
    The bigger and more complex the application, the less is the effect of this.
  - remram 1y ago
    Me? None. I'm not the one proposing the use of Rust and WASM for form validation. What kind of validation are you going to do without a regular expression?
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      > What kind of validation are you going to do without a regular expression? Actual form validation… I can't even think of a single kind of form validation where a regex would help…
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
  With `regex-lite` I got under 100,000 bytes on the email regex in the sibling comment. Not great, not terrible.

qoez 1y ago

Once you compile it to wasm and dead code analysis is applied and notices that only a fraction of whatever libraries you're using is necessary for form validation the code tends to be a lot less than what you'd have if you used non dead code analyzed pure JS.

graypegg 1y ago
Well, if we were implementing the equivalent in JS, we'd also use https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputElement/checkValidity https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLInputEl... just like this. I think it would maybe be a few lines of javascript at most to do exactly what this is doing. 400ish bytes? Of course there's always the argument that you'd add more javascript to "framework-ize" this a bit more, but the rust code is just targeting the DOM with IDs, so I don't think it's fair to compare it to any "framework-y" solution.

madduci 1y ago

Same with some JavaScript frameworks. I need to download 700kb+ JS files just to perform some fancy stuff.

timeon 1y ago
Also Tailwind. Obese HTML just to avoid css.

jpdenford 1y ago

The author said the following > I’m using form validation as a placeholder. It shows all the crucial aspects to use WASM instead of JS, like wiring up DOM events to Rust functions, and then reacting to those events.

_mlbt 1y ago

You can actually do a lot of form validation without even using JavaScript. HTML and CSS are capable of handling many common form validation needs... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Extensions/Forms/Form_validation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_developme...