D could catch this wave: web assembly

[via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 21 June 2015 at 11:56:13 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> importance of which Wyatt and I discussed above.  Just by 
> webasm being implemented in all major browsers, it would 
> certainly lead to a _lot_ less javascript getting written, once 
> devs actually have a choice of other languages, even if they'd 
> still have to wrap javascript calls for DOM manipulation.

People are already writing less javascript, but without a GC in 
webasm most languages are better of compiling to javascript or a 
mix.

> As for Java and Flash, they were very widely used, despite 
> being slow and in their own little world inside the browser.

They were used in very narrow domains.

> might help.  I haven't messed with canvas much, but it's 
> interesting how little it's been used, despite all the hype it 
> got when it was first released.

Well, you can often get more done in less time by using 
HTML5/CSS. That's the only reason.

> That's what you do when you mash a bunch of disparate 
> technologies together: make them mixable and flexible and let 
> the devs deal with all the complexity and bugs. :)

In a way, yes, but that how things grow when you have an 
installed base. Evergreen browsers could in theory change it, but 
we rely on Apple and Microsoft to update browsers for old OSes to 
get there.

> If speed of parsing and analyzing weren't one of the main 
> issues, why are they even taking this webasm binary approach?  
> A binary SVG can be made part of the DOM too once it's parsed.

I think the vendors have realized that they need to take 
babysteps in concert, because there is to much politics involved 
to accept a "whole-sale solution" like PNACL etc.

IMO it basically means that they all want some kind of IR, but 
don't agree on the specifics.

>> In the scripting API using text as values might be an issue, 
>> but that's a different topic.
>
> Nothing that couldn't be made to work with the appropriate 
> binary encoding.

Not sure what that means. You need to have a different 
type-system for values so that you can differentiate between 
units (px, em, etc).