walt

curlywas) -- c-like but very low-level; seems very complete; rust impl; mit license; short but seemingly thorough docs? wa (https://github.com/wa-lang/wa) -- go-like, not clear how high/low level it is, thorough docs, seems promising, agpl license, lots of mandarin in docs virgil (https://github.com/titzer/virgil) -- ruby-like? gc; cant find license; last commit 3 hours ago; thorough docs but all in md files in repo assemblyscript (https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript) -- typescript-like; apache 2 license, minimal runtime with gc; implemented in js walt (https://github.com/ballercat/walt) -- JavaScript-like made for wasm, 25 contributors! decent looking docs, might actually be usable! most commits 7 years ago but last commit 3 years ago though, mit license onyx (https://wasmer.io/posts/onyxlang-powered-by-wasmer, https://github.com/onyx-lang/onyx) -- ocaml-like? recent activity, full docs, bsd license, not sure if it has lower level capabilities or how much the higher level features cost at runtime or build time waforth (https://github.com/remko/waforth) -- forth for wasm! upside is that its forth, downside is that its forth; mit license; great docs; seemingly inefficient due to constant lookups? Less likely: thinscript (https://github.com/evanw/thinscript) -- js-like with macros; abandoned 9 years ago; not yet licensed wase (https://github.com/area9innovation/wase) -- C-like syntax but still wasm-like, not super recent but not super old, only a few contributors, not sure how complete it is but its docs give a feeling of being mostly-complete, MIT license wam (https://github.com/kanaka/wam) -- wasm macro preprocessor, just one guy, last commit 7 years ago, very few built in macros, mozilla license (???) wah (https://github.com/tmcw/wah) -- wasm but with infix, doesn't seem extensible with macros, two contributors, last commit 8 years ago, eclipse license (???) Honorable mentions: mini-c (https://github.com/maierfelix/mini-c) -- C to wasm compiler, seemingly abandoned 8 years ago, not sure how complete it is c4wa (https://github.com/kign/c4wa) -- c to wasm compiler, no activity in 3 years, no license, written in java

lelization First of all, isn't WebPack written in JavaScript? Seems to do just fine. Also, if we are talking about a somewhat modern browser that supports Web Workers parallelization is perfectly viable, no? Add Web Assembly and TextEncoder/TextDecoder in the mix and things could get even faster[1][2][3]. (The main performance issue I see is that due to SharedArrayBuffers being disabled (for now), each worker would need its own Uint8Array copy of the source input[4]) > Can we dump it into a file and load it programatticaly? I would be surprised if we could. Saving a file is easy these days, just use a Blob[5]. > Eval() the output? Not without some serious security checks that would further compromise performance. Creating Function object works. It just requires a string as input. I also don't see why this would be more insecure than compiling the same source string ahead of time - you end up running the same code. This isn't the typical user-context in which eval is dangerous. > So I believe there is no motivation in not pre-compiling and distributing the result dist code. You are arguing this from a technical point of view, which misses the entire point. Namely, that client-side compilation allows for browser-based apps, demos, and sharing. It greatly lowers the threshold to trying things out. You may dislike CoffeeScript, but being able to try it out in the browser is quite a good sales pitch[6]. For a more ambitious example: Observable is a notebook environment similar to IPython, but for JavaScript, and with one of IPython's biggest quirks removed: cells track dependencies on other cells and re-evaluate as necessary[7]. The server is there for cloud storage and remote collaboration, allowing you to instantly share the notebook. However, I think it does most, if not all of its compilation client-side, since it still works when you are temporarily off-line (also, Jeremy Ashkenas is part of the developer team). The aforementioned compiler for Walt can easily run in the browser, so last year I tried combining the two. It took me only a couple of hours to get it working[8]. Of course, you lose the benefit of a developer environment made for the language (but IIRC supporting compiles-to-JS languages is on the long-term Observable roadmap), but still: being able to quickly try out some simple WASM code without needing anything except a modern browser is quite powerful. [0] https://github.com/ballercat/walt [1] https://dzone.com/articles/webassembly-web-workers [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/TextEncoder [3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/TextDecoder [4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe... [5] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Blob/Blob [6] https://coffeescript.org/#overview [7] https://beta.observablehq.com/ [8] https://beta.observablehq.com/@jobleonard/compiling-walt-in-...