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Anyone using WebAssembly yet? HTML, CSS, JavaScript - all there. Just about nobody uses WebAssembly. It first appeared almost ten years ago. This is snail-spee

Anyone using WebAssembly yet? HTML, CSS, JavaScript - all there. Just about nobody uses WebAssembly. It first appeared almost ten years ago. This is snail-speed evolution at best.

anonymous908213 9mo ago
People use wasm for things that need wasm. My use case is my cross-platform game engine, because running both natively and in the browser was a priority for me. It is a wonderful tool and it is a truly magical feeling to see my native games running in the browser. But 99% of web developers are developing ordinary websites, so they don't need it. That's not an indictment of wasm.
demaga 9mo ago
I saw a few web apps that use Rust crates for physics. I guess they must be using wasm?
dagi3d 9mo ago
Figma
miki_oomiri 9mo ago
You have the wrong understanding about wasm. It's absolutely not supposed to be replacing HTML, CSS or JS. And yes wasm is used wildly. On the web for expensive computation (Google earth, figma, autocad, unity games) or server side for portability and sandboxing (Cloudflare workers, fastly, …)
- IshKebab 9mo ago
  It is definitely meant to replace JS in some applications. It isn't quite there yet for normal web pages but it will be eventually. There are a few front-end web frameworks written in Rust that use WASM. The whole "it's not meant to replace JS" thing was just to reduce pushback from JS devs.
  - miki_oomiri 9mo ago
    > The whole "it's not meant to replace JS" thing was just to reduce pushback from JS devs. It was born at the same time as webgl, at the time of Jit optimisation for js engines. As a subset of js first, then as wasm as we know it. It was originally for games and performance on the web. At no point there was a conversation about "replacing js", but more like, "js can't do these stuff. let's have something else".
    - IshKebab 9mo ago
      > At no point there was a conversation about "replacing js" There absolutely was. This famous talk was made even when it was still Asm.js: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
      - Dylan16807 9mo ago
        That talk is intentionally silly and at the end is talking about replacing all binaries, not javascript in particular, and yes that does strongly change the meaning.
      - miki_oomiri 9mo ago
        Not gonna argue with "who said what". All I can tell you with certainty is that the people who designed and funded webgl/asmjs/llvm efforts at Mozilla (Alon, Vlad, Brendan, …) clearly understood that wasm was a needed companion alongside JS (and its DOM&co bindings). Not a replacement. I was part of these conversations. I understand why people would think it was a JS killer, but that's a naive way of looking at it.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
taminka 9mo ago
wasm isn't meant to supersede html/css/js (unfortunately) and it's regularly used for high performance applications in the browser, web-based cad software, figma, youtube (i think they use wasm for codec fallback when support is spotty) etc there is also games, stuff to do with video (ffmpeg built for wasm), ml applications (mlc), in fact it's currently impossible to use wasm w/o js to load the wasm binary as a result, the web stack is a bit upside down now, w/o the seemingly "low level" and "high performance" parts over the slow bits (javascript)
embedding-shape 9mo ago
> Anyone using WebAssembly yet? Yes, tons. Obviously not all, but large parts of these are WASM: https://itch.io/games/platform-web https://itch.io/games/platform-web Tools like Figma are only performant because of WASM.
- polyterative 9mo ago
  Figma wouldn't exist without WASM
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Surely it'd be using asm.js if it wasn't for WASM ;)
adzm 9mo ago
I use a wasm xxhash implementation that is 40x faster than the fastest JavaScript version I can find. Drop in replacement. Call overhead is minimal, could be better with stringref if that ever gets available. Also some other audio analysis stuff in wasm I've been using is 400x faster than the JavaScript implementation but admittedly I just went straight to wasm rather than try to optimize the js in that case.
flohofwoe 9mo ago
WebAssembly is a virtual ISA, not a replacement for HTML and CSS. It was also never meant to kill Javascript (which is actually a pretty nice language if you stick to the 'good parts' via Typescript and linting), but at most as an alternative or complement to JS, and as that WASM works really well.
onion2k 9mo ago
I'm writing a point and click adventure game, and for that I've built a dialogue editor that uses a local text-to-speech model to turn speech into audio that runs in WASM (or WebGPU if it's available). From what I can tell WASM is mostly being used to run big libraries from other languages in web apps. That's not a particularly common thing to need, so it's not commonly used. That doesn't mean it's moving too slowly.
TkTech 9mo ago
Sure, here's a Rust/WASM procedural skybox generator I threw together the other day, and is much, much faster at 16k renders then Javascript. https://tkte.ch/night-sky/ https://tkte.ch/night-sky/
mickael-kerjean 9mo ago
I use it extensively in my OSS work (https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash) mostly around: 1. creating plugins that get executed in the browser to render files like Parquet, PSD, TIFF, SQLite, EPS, ZIP, TGZ, GIS related files and many more, where C libraries are almost always the reference implementations. There are almost a hundred supported file formats, most of which are supported through WASM 2. creating plugins that get executed in the server to generate your own endpoint or middleware while being sure you can't start exfiltrating data (which can be other people's files, and other sensitive stuff) 3. in the workflow engine to enable people to run their own sandboxed scripts without giving those a blank check to go crazy
- ChadNauseam 9mo ago
  It also simply lets you use rust on the web. That's why I use wasm. It's actually an extremely nice experience. I write all my business logic in rust, and all my UI logic in javascript. There is rust tooling that automatically generates typescript types and APIs for you that make interoperating the two languages basically effortless. And by using rust/wasm, I can reach a level of performance that would be hilariously impossible in javascript
circuit10 9mo ago
This is like saying "HTML, CSS and JavaScript are all widely used, but the webcam capture API is used way less, so obviously it's a failure" In its current scope, WASM is a way to port existing code or accelerate certain computations, which only some applications need. Most websites don't need it, like how most sites don't need to use webcam capture; that doesn't mean it's not useful for those that do

Anyone using WebAssembly yet? HTML, CSS, JavaScript - all there. Just about nobody uses WebAssembly. It first appeared almost ten years ago. This is snail-speed evolution at best.

anonymous908213 9mo ago

People use wasm for things that need wasm. My use case is my cross-platform game engine, because running both natively and in the browser was a priority for me. It is a wonderful tool and it is a truly magical feeling to see my native games running in the browser. But 99% of web developers are developing ordinary websites, so they don't need it. That's not an indictment of wasm.

demaga 9mo ago

I saw a few web apps that use Rust crates for physics. I guess they must be using wasm?

dagi3d 9mo ago

Figma

miki_oomiri 9mo ago

You have the wrong understanding about wasm. It's absolutely not supposed to be replacing HTML, CSS or JS. And yes wasm is used wildly. On the web for expensive computation (Google earth, figma, autocad, unity games) or server side for portability and sandboxing (Cloudflare workers, fastly, …)

IshKebab 9mo ago
It is definitely meant to replace JS in some applications. It isn't quite there yet for normal web pages but it will be eventually. There are a few front-end web frameworks written in Rust that use WASM. The whole "it's not meant to replace JS" thing was just to reduce pushback from JS devs.
- miki_oomiri 9mo ago
  > The whole "it's not meant to replace JS" thing was just to reduce pushback from JS devs. It was born at the same time as webgl, at the time of Jit optimisation for js engines. As a subset of js first, then as wasm as we know it. It was originally for games and performance on the web. At no point there was a conversation about "replacing js", but more like, "js can't do these stuff. let's have something else".
  - IshKebab 9mo ago
    > At no point there was a conversation about "replacing js" There absolutely was. This famous talk was made even when it was still Asm.js: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
    - Dylan16807 9mo ago
      That talk is intentionally silly and at the end is talking about replacing all binaries, not javascript in particular, and yes that does strongly change the meaning.
    - miki_oomiri 9mo ago
      Not gonna argue with "who said what". All I can tell you with certainty is that the people who designed and funded webgl/asmjs/llvm efforts at Mozilla (Alon, Vlad, Brendan, …) clearly understood that wasm was a needed companion alongside JS (and its DOM&co bindings). Not a replacement. I was part of these conversations. I understand why people would think it was a JS killer, but that's a naive way of looking at it.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]

taminka 9mo ago

wasm isn't meant to supersede html/css/js (unfortunately) and it's regularly used for high performance applications in the browser, web-based cad software, figma, youtube (i think they use wasm for codec fallback when support is spotty) etc there is also games, stuff to do with video (ffmpeg built for wasm), ml applications (mlc), in fact it's currently impossible to use wasm w/o js to load the wasm binary as a result, the web stack is a bit upside down now, w/o the seemingly "low level" and "high performance" parts over the slow bits (javascript)

embedding-shape 9mo ago

> Anyone using WebAssembly yet? Yes, tons. Obviously not all, but large parts of these are WASM: https://itch.io/games/platform-web https://itch.io/games/platform-web Tools like Figma are only performant because of WASM.

polyterative 9mo ago
Figma wouldn't exist without WASM
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  Surely it'd be using asm.js if it wasn't for WASM ;)

adzm 9mo ago

I use a wasm xxhash implementation that is 40x faster than the fastest JavaScript version I can find. Drop in replacement. Call overhead is minimal, could be better with stringref if that ever gets available. Also some other audio analysis stuff in wasm I've been using is 400x faster than the JavaScript implementation but admittedly I just went straight to wasm rather than try to optimize the js in that case.

flohofwoe 9mo ago

WebAssembly is a virtual ISA, not a replacement for HTML and CSS. It was also never meant to kill Javascript (which is actually a pretty nice language if you stick to the 'good parts' via Typescript and linting), but at most as an alternative or complement to JS, and as that WASM works really well.

onion2k 9mo ago

I'm writing a point and click adventure game, and for that I've built a dialogue editor that uses a local text-to-speech model to turn speech into audio that runs in WASM (or WebGPU if it's available). From what I can tell WASM is mostly being used to run big libraries from other languages in web apps. That's not a particularly common thing to need, so it's not commonly used. That doesn't mean it's moving too slowly.

TkTech 9mo ago

Sure, here's a Rust/WASM procedural skybox generator I threw together the other day, and is much, much faster at 16k renders then Javascript. https://tkte.ch/night-sky/ https://tkte.ch/night-sky/

mickael-kerjean 9mo ago

I use it extensively in my OSS work (https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash) mostly around: 1. creating plugins that get executed in the browser to render files like Parquet, PSD, TIFF, SQLite, EPS, ZIP, TGZ, GIS related files and many more, where C libraries are almost always the reference implementations. There are almost a hundred supported file formats, most of which are supported through WASM 2. creating plugins that get executed in the server to generate your own endpoint or middleware while being sure you can't start exfiltrating data (which can be other people's files, and other sensitive stuff) 3. in the workflow engine to enable people to run their own sandboxed scripts without giving those a blank check to go crazy

ChadNauseam 9mo ago
It also simply lets you use rust on the web. That's why I use wasm. It's actually an extremely nice experience. I write all my business logic in rust, and all my UI logic in javascript. There is rust tooling that automatically generates typescript types and APIs for you that make interoperating the two languages basically effortless. And by using rust/wasm, I can reach a level of performance that would be hilariously impossible in javascript

circuit10 9mo ago

This is like saying "HTML, CSS and JavaScript are all widely used, but the webcam capture API is used way less, so obviously it's a failure" In its current scope, WASM is a way to port existing code or accelerate certain computations, which only some applications need. Most websites don't need it, like how most sites don't need to use webcam capture; that doesn't mean it's not useful for those that do