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There are far more meaningful reasons why JavaScript is not Web assembly than metaphor wrangling. There are things that you simply cannot do in JavaScript that
by Lerc 14y ago
There are far more meaningful reasons why JavaScript is not Web assembly than metaphor wrangling.
There are things that you simply cannot do in JavaScript that you can in assembly. Many of those are horrible practices with little use. In assembly, if the computer can do it you can do it. C retains most of those abilities because it compiles to Assembly/Machine code.
How does one even write the unix cat command in JavaScript?
The structure of while(read())write() does not go down well in JavaScript.
JavaScript needs to be able to fork, wait and preempt if it wants to be assembly.
- macspoofing 14y ago>There are things that you simply cannot do in JavaScript that you can in assembly. Urgh. Way to completely not understand the "assembly of the web" metaphor. OF COURSE JavaScript is not literally like assembly.
- Lerc 14y agoI understand the different interpretations of the metaphor. That's the problem with metaphors, they are open to interpretation. With Javascript the term assembly for the web has been used seriously by people in a variety of contexts. Brendan Eich has argued against a bytecode vm approach to a low level powerful system, saying that Javascript can provide that low level functionality. This is very much the viewpoint that the capability can be considered comparable to assembly. I don't think that is correct but I recognise that that is what some people refer to as assembly for the web. I really don't care what it is called and what metaphor is used, that is all trivial compared to the fact that Javascript is not up to performing all the tasks that it should be able to do if it wishes to be a comprehensive platform.
- macspoofing 14y ago>Javascript is not up to performing all the tasks that it should be able to do if it wishes to be a comprehensive platform. Like what?