interface-types

oss platform applications. I can see this taking off only if it is built-into the browsers and backed by some standards committee, so not very likely I think 6) Something like the Interface Types proposal ( https://github.com/WebAssembly/interface-types/blob/main/pro... ) becomes a thing allowing wasm programs to be consisted of modules written in several different languages and being able to call said modules with low or 0 runtime performance hit (and of course, no compilation to multiple CPU archs). So much of programming ecosystems are locked to specific languages (like data science with python) when there is little technical reason for it be like that.

dependencies, so you don't need to constantly update your apps and aren't harassed by Dependabot PRs. More importantly: smaller attack surface and less opportunity for compromises. * Security. Webassembly is sandboxed and has a much smaller attack surface than a whole operating system syscall sandboxing layer (aka Docker et al). Wasm also naturally lends itself to capability based security with handles that are passed around, so you can even scope permissions inside your application code. (hint: reference types) * Easier local development. It's much easier and quicker to download and start 100 small .wasm based services than it is with (often large) Docker images / Kubernetes setups. * Quasi-instant startup (after the wasm is compiled, or with an interpreter) * Less resource usage. It's relatively easy to freeze and persist Wasm instances to disk when they aren't used. Or do things like seamlessly migrate them between nodes. Or snapshot and resume them locally for debugging. * In-browser usage: you can even just run the same code in your browser anytime you want. ( the runtime I'm working on can provide a mostly complete dev environment just in the browser, which works mostly identically to server deployments, excluding obvious deficiencies like no direct network or storage access) --- Of course things aren't just rosy. Some downsides/risk factors: * There are quite a few proposals that are crawling through the standardization process. (GC, more control over the stack, tail calls, interface types, WASI, multi threading, module linking, ...). Several of those would be really important especially for interpreted languages. * Language support. Rust, C and C++ work. This is not so much the case for other languages. As mentioned above, the spec leaves a lot wanting for running interpreters, and few of the popular languages can be AOT compiled. There is a Spidermonkey WASM build that makes running JS feasible, but it's of course much slower than a regular JIT enabled v8. * Tooling and ubiquity. WASM is basically the next iteration of serverless. And there are many areas where serverless is frowned upon. I feel like this is mostly a tooling problem though that can be solved by a good ecosystem and a powerful runtime. --- All in all I do believe WASM has the potential to be a very prominent (and hopefully the preferred) way to deploy a lot of applications, eventually. [1] https://github.com/WebAssembly/interface-types/blob/main/pro...

e gone to optimize the DOM renderers. Right now this is just the terminal. I think- "it could be worse". But it chills me deeply that the terminal is now no longer real information. It's now just a happenstance jumble of pixels, powered by only it's own inner logic & a unique maze of libraries. Big tech keeps optimizing and optimizing, & the motive we keep being sold- this is for your good, this helps you- is one I frankly have a very hard time negotiating with myself. De-webbifying the web, de-commonizing the common platform- as Facebook has done by virtualizing the DOM- feels like this ever-running big-bang from a truthful original universe into a sparse, cold, expanding universe where each little fragment defines itself, where the common hypertext medium no longer means anything. I keep waiting for some moments of contraction, some coming back together, for things to make more sense again, to recontract into something more solid. React's first WebComponents PR[3] is a notable re-contracting, re-platforming- a powerful act I frankly didn't expect, so rare as to feel practically unprecedented. I realize much of this flexibility, the demonstrated versatility of the web & usage of the various pieces of it represents much of it's strength. The platform being a low-level platform where higher level platforms can be created is amazing; the Extensible Web Manifesto[4] speaks to that emergence of newer higher levels systems. And right now we're in early days, just starting a precambrian explosion of higher level web, as technology like WebAssembly only just begins to become real- still so early, still way pre-pre- Interface Types[5]/Host Bindings, only just the crudest emulation beginning in via projects like Rust's wasm-bindgen / web-sys. I am happy we are still exploding. We have so much more to exlpore. But gee I also question so much when big enterprises turn hypertext into pixels. To move compute into webassembly is a bold leap but the hypertext can survive, the DOM is still truth. It's so uncertain to me, feels like so much might be lost when giants like Microsoft or Google yank out the HTML & replace it with pixels, pushed into our faces. It feels like betrayal, like sabotage, like we're giving up truth. [1] https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/Google-Docs-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27131659 [3] https://github.com/facebook/react/pull/22184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29505332 (16 days, 0 comments) [4] https://github.com/extensibleweb/manifesto [5] https://github.com/WebAssembly/interface-types/blob/main/pro...