Lin Clark on WebAssembly

 

This time we got to listen to a podcast for our Compiler Design Class. We listen to Lin Clark, a programmer that makes cartoons to simplify the explication of a code, and member of many groups to develop in Web Assembly. Lin explains what Web Assembly is and what are its uses and advantages over not using it.

Web Assembly is made to give the programmer more versatility over web development. You could say that Web assembly is come sort of compiler. It gives a small set of operations for the higher-level language to compile. Generally, it can be written directly in assembly but it is better to use a compiler tool, so people write in C or C++ which are languages that gives you more control to manage your resources such as memory. Web Assembly is useful because there are some complications that won’t allow to make JavaScript to work properly or faster, so Web Assembly allows more consistent performance on all browsers. In the end the goal of Web Assembly is to makes it possible to have consistent performance through all app. In addition, many developers such as Lin Clark or working on making Web Assembly easy to use with today’s Java Script tools.

As we know a web application consist on three languages needed, they are: HTML to give structure, CSS for style, and Java Script to give behaviors However, Java Script wasn’t designed to run quickly but instead it was design to develop applications faster. So here is where Web Assembly becomes very useful. For target use case examples, you can use it in a pc games to prevent gaps in animation performance. Adobe know has versions that run on the browser and Web Assembly allows it to run smoothly. Some programmers have even reported that using it can raise the speed up to 6 times more.

I find this new tool incredibly useful and I like that there is a growing community that is building more support and tools for it. I am curious on how I could use it in my own projects.