WebAssembly: 5 Predictions for 2023

THENEWSTACK.IO

This is a good start to the year, some crystal-ball gazing. WebAssembly has undergone quite a transformation over the past few years, from being a browser-based technology that was effectively a better replacement for the tired old plugin system (e.g. Flash, Applets, Silverlight), to being a versatile runtime used across an ever-growing set of use-cases (serverless, edge, plug-in, blockchain). Considering this transformation, this blog posts look at what might be just around the next corner.

Some interesting predictions, although personally I’m not sure of the fifth one, which expected JavaScript to become the most popular wasm language. Yes, QuickJS (and other lightweight JS runtimes) has opened the door to running JavaScript on wasm engines, but is this fundamentally what people will want?

I’ll revisit this prediction when running the State of WebAssembly survey in 2023.

Red Hat and WebAssembly

REDHAT.COM

WebAssembly was originally created through collaboration between Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft and Google. Since then, various other large and influential organisations have demonstarted commitmet to the technology. This post outlines why Red Hat are involved and investing in this technology, and some of the areas where they contribute.

WebAssembly for the Java Geek

JAVAADVENT.COM

This is an interesting post … in the early days of WebAssembly you often heard people asking “how does this differ from the JVM?”. The Java Virtual Runtime (JVM) is a platform-agnostic virtual machien that was intended to bring the Java language to the whole range of computing platforms, including the web (Java Applets). On the surface of it, there is a lot in common between wasm and the JVM, and the question is a fair challenge. It’s a question I tackled on StackOverflow a while back.

This fantastic blog post does far more justice to the question than my brief response on StackOverflow.

Vim Online Editor

VIMONLINEEDITOR.COM

An online version of the vim editor, using WebAssembly, with file storage via IndexedDB, because … why not?!

Exploring Docker Hub’s WASM technical preview

MEDIUM.COM

Docker recently introduced first-class support for WebAssembly, allowing you to bundle up wasm files in docker containers. This brief tutorial takes you through the steps required, allowing you to try this out for yourself.