As was announced yesterday, WebAssembly language (replacing asm.js) is
seriously real. Here's a FAQ
https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/FAQ.md#faq
And Brendan Eich:
https://brendaneich.com/2015/06/from-asm-js-to-webassembly/
There is still hope for JS itself, however. JS can import wasm:
Is WebAssembly only for C/C++ programmers?
As explained in the high-level goals
<https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/HighLevelGoals.md>, to
achieve a Minimum Viable Product, the initial focus is on C/C++
<https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/CAndC++.md>.
However, byintegrating
with JS at the ES6 Module interface
<https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/MVP.md#modules>, web
developers don't need to write C++ to take advantage of libraries that
others have written; reusing a modular C++ library can be as simple as using
a module from JS <http://jsmodules.io/>.
Beyond the MVP, another high-level goal
<https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/HighLevelGoals.md> is to
improve support for languages other than C/C++. This includes allowing
WebAssembly code to allocate and access garbage-collected (JS, DOM, Web
API) objects
<https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/FutureFeatures.md#gcdom-integration>.
Even before GC support is added to WebAssembly, it is possible to compile a
language's VM to WebAssembly (assuming it's written in portable C/C++) and
this has already been demonstrated (1 <http://ruby.dj/>, 2
<https://kripken.github.io/lua.vm.js/lua.vm.js.html>, 3
<https://syntensity.blogspot.com/2010/12/python-demo.html>). However,
"compile the VM" strategies increase the size of distributed code, lose
browser devtools integration, can have cross-language cycle-collection
problems and miss optimizations that require integration with the browser.
My guess is that Java or GWT (Google Web Toolkit) will eventually be able
compile to wasm. So you're right again, Frank!
-- Owen
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