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WebAssembly is amazing, but I don't think making it a DOM controller is where the action is. What specific scenarios do you aspire to unlock and why would those

WebAssembly is amazing, but I don't think making it a DOM controller is where the action is. What specific scenarios do you aspire to unlock and why would those scenarios lead to broader adoption?

yoshuaw 7mo ago
I think it's less about unlocking new scenarios per se, and more about making existing scenarios better. If given the choice I'll generally prefer to write my code in Rust. But with native Wasm Component-based DOM bindings that same code will now run twice as fast.
- yoshuaw 7mo ago
  The other side of the story here is also worth considering: native support in browsers provides a stable compile target for language toolchains. It'd be really nice if targeting the web from e.g. Kotlin, Swift, or Rust becomes just a matter of passing the right flag to the compiler.
bvisness 7mo ago
> I don't think making it a DOM controller is where the action is Why not? I feel like people have gotten so used to the limitations of WebAssembly today that they've internalized JS as the only answer. But I don't really like JS, and would love to build web apps in other languages, and I totally would if it wasn't a huge pain (and slower too!)
mendyberger 7mo ago
> What specific scenarios do you aspire to unlock Modern languages come with lots of interesting features like better dev ex, null safety, etc. Js is a fine language, but there are other languages that bring unique advantages, the web shouldn't block developers from using better tools. The web is best off when developers have freedom.
justinclift 7mo ago
Being able to program modern websites without having to learn javascript/typescript in any way? :)
swiftcoder 7mo ago
Web development in languages other than Javascript, mostly. Today this would benefit languages like Rust that already have adhoc JS-based glue layers to enable their WASM output to call Web APIs, but you can imagine a future where languages like TypeScript compile directly to WASM instead of transpiling to JS...

WebAssembly is amazing, but I don't think making it a DOM controller is where the action is. What specific scenarios do you aspire to unlock and why would those scenarios lead to broader adoption?

yoshuaw 7mo ago

I think it's less about unlocking new scenarios per se, and more about making existing scenarios better. If given the choice I'll generally prefer to write my code in Rust. But with native Wasm Component-based DOM bindings that same code will now run twice as fast.

yoshuaw 7mo ago
The other side of the story here is also worth considering: native support in browsers provides a stable compile target for language toolchains. It'd be really nice if targeting the web from e.g. Kotlin, Swift, or Rust becomes just a matter of passing the right flag to the compiler.

bvisness 7mo ago

> I don't think making it a DOM controller is where the action is Why not? I feel like people have gotten so used to the limitations of WebAssembly today that they've internalized JS as the only answer. But I don't really like JS, and would love to build web apps in other languages, and I totally would if it wasn't a huge pain (and slower too!)

mendyberger 7mo ago

> What specific scenarios do you aspire to unlock Modern languages come with lots of interesting features like better dev ex, null safety, etc. Js is a fine language, but there are other languages that bring unique advantages, the web shouldn't block developers from using better tools. The web is best off when developers have freedom.

justinclift 7mo ago

Being able to program modern websites without having to learn javascript/typescript in any way? :)

swiftcoder 7mo ago

Web development in languages other than Javascript, mostly. Today this would benefit languages like Rust that already have adhoc JS-based glue layers to enable their WASM output to call Web APIs, but you can imagine a future where languages like TypeScript compile directly to WASM instead of transpiling to JS...