WebAssembly On The Server??? Why?

I see a lot of promise in WASMER. What is needed is an orchestration system, and some proven distributed systems in WASM

Running the binaries in the browser kinda blew my mind. It reduces the friction of testing a package massively.

look for Colin Breck's latest posts on Web Assembly, WA is very promising for IoT

I'm so happy that WebAssembly is gaining traction! Actually seems to be fulfilling some of the early promises that were made. Namely, simply re-compiling an existing application to target WebAssembly.

I tried WebAssembly around 2017. I tried both emscripten via C++ and rust's wasi32-unknown-unknown target. I was pretty disappointed.

This presentation seems great. Thank you.

Isn't what exactly the JVM was for?

Fascinating and exciting!

It's like java bytecode with a more minimal runtime and no gc, right?

Kubernetes is the king. Anything else is "too little, too late." All the major companies are backing Kubernetes and it has been involved DEEP AND WIDE in many corporations' server infrastructures.

“If web assembly existed in 2008 we wouldn’t have had to make Docker”

Ummmm… no. Containers have many use cases and the majority of them are outside of the use cases for web assembly.

I am skeptical. I do not see a compelling reason to move from containers, or to stop building native apps that run in containers. The promise of library interop is much more complicated than it is presented here. Just because a library built in another language can link into any other WASM binary, that doesn’t make them compatible. Different languages use different data structures, memory layouts, runtimes, and conventions. Unless WASI solves that issue, what we are really getting here is the ability to compile code that could be run natively to bytecode, then run less efficiently under WASM than it could when compiled natively and hosted in a container. Node/deno/bun solve a problem: Enable web technologies to be run outside the browser. WASM was created to enable “compiled” languages to run in the browser. But here there is no browser. That code could just be run natively.

comparing wasm with docker looks weird for me. they both provide isolation but on different level. it is possible that people will use wasm with docker.

Thank you for wasi intro.
I’ve heard of it but never thought it could or should run on servers.
Exciting time indeed…

Great content, this is California before the gold rush

There's no end to this shit.

Is it possible to write a Desktop Environment in wasm? Like gnome or kde.

semi-unrelated, but one thing I don't understand about new package managers - why don't they use (something like) IPFS. It seems so well suited for exactly packages.
- less traffic for servers, deduplication, ease of sharing, more robust ... and it's all publicly available stuff...

Docker became popular because it allowed running single-threaded Node apps as if they were separate systems, which pushed complexity onto the load-balancer/reverse proxy ... and it made life miserable for backend programmers

if the authors of Docker support web assembly on the server then I'll skip it

era of union!

I just recently adopted AssemblyScript into my collective's ecosystem, and it's been a pleassure working with WASM. This stuff is the future.

Why would you do this 😭

This is really cool. I think the whole WASM ecosystem is going to be huge. One issue I see with it though is that for example in NPM, pretty much every package is in javascript. This allows for things like tree-shaking. If every WASM package is basically machine-code, that means multiple packages that have the same dependencies may not be able to use the same binary, or if they do there will be a lot of complex inter-weaving of communication between threads that will slow down the application. I wonder how they've solved the problems that arise from the dependency tree given that.

Why did it take me almost 5 years to learn that web assembly does more than hasten the imminent demise of JS??? THANK YOU for sharing this, I can't even imagine all the possibilities this opens up for me!

I'm about to finish a step in my project, and the next step is all about how to get a national network of bots running programs in various languages on various versions of Android with different versions of different locally stored packages (there are algorithms that analyze your packages and various other details of your device to "fingerprint" you in case you try to value your privacy and hide your personal data) to do what I want them to do, never fail, and if they do fail they still need to be reachable and thereby fixable.

I wasn't sure how to go about that, but I figured I'd either need a custom package manager (I really DID NOT want to make that) or a controller that handles multiple package managers.

This. Is. A. Godsend..

Thank you.

I would appreciate a curated list of sources in the description, so the viewer can have a looksie for themselves. Like where did you get the information about wapm from? Not just the homepage and a link to the docs. That would be awesome :3
Thanks in advance

You blew my mind with that point of defragging the open-source library space. Huge boon for WASI

Looked at the title and thumbnail and thought "what the hell for?!?!" Watched the video and thought "Hmmmm.... this sounds like an interesting idea".
It's funny how Java started as a cool new browser technology and eventually found a home on the server, and now WASM is following that path again.

This is awesome. I wonder if there will be an OS developed around it.

BLAZOR

Is it possible to create a web assembly app that runs in the browser that calls native swift macOS frameworks?

its infuriating how many pitfalls and headaches we could have avoided if we only adopted new technologies, I hate how strong money is involved as a barrier for these..

If dynamic linking wasn't a thing, we wouldn't need Java and WASM in the first place. Dynamic Linking is the source of all evil.

i think it will not replace docker
is webassembly support running operating system like in docker
in docker you can run almost anything safely including operating systems without conflicting on dependencies or libraries
in docker image you can install ubuntu or centos

i noticed most of the tutorials like this
do we need mac to program?
i dont have alot of money

Great video.Thank you a lot

WasmEdge looks interesting! Mixed with CRI-O + Kubernetes for Stateless? Could be a great setup. I don't get much time to toy with those kinds of things anymore, though, unfortunately. Otherwise, I would!

LOL No. At least not in 5 years. I have finished multiple projects required to have a feature for wasm and it sucks.

Some feedback I would give for WAPM: it’s confusing how you can use libraries

Thanks a lot!

Great tutorial!!

Awesome debrief of scope big hug from Australia

Amazing tutorial, WASM just seems like "better" java (java can self optimize at runtime and get crazy performance, WASM would not). Not sure if it would replace docker for most of my uses though, unless I start running hardened kernels👍 Sure do love how docker makes an isolated virtual filesystem

Sounds like Silverlight or Flash plugins for the browser..

Wasm never ceases to flabbergast me

Wasm is a big step forward in the browser and extremely promising for servers but I don't think the docker comparison fully holds up. While wasm performance can be impressive, it is still noticeably slower than native code executed through docker. The sandboxing features in docker are supported by linux kernel features and run the actual CPU bound code with fully native performance.

Nonetheless wasm is a pretty darn exciting technology

THE VIDEO I WAITED FOR!
WASM on the server looks so interesting 🤩♥️

It is interesting..

I can't help but be reminded of Java's promise of "Write once, run anywhere." In my opinion, Java failed horribly on that front. This was mainly because you had to install a compatible version of the Java VM on each system. In many cases you have to install multiple different Java VMs for different Java applications. Most end users ended up having to install and maintain multiple flavors and versions of Java VMs. Often when installing a Java application you ended up installing the entire compatible VM along side it just to ensure it would run.

Interestingly, where Java succeeded most is where the VM could be locked down to a specific, known flavor and version; like servers, embedded, Android, etc.

If WASM is going to succeed, it absolutely MUST avoid that kind of fragmentation. It HAS to be the case that if you compile to WASM, it just works on every system. There does seem to be some hope for WASM. I'm crossing my fingers.