Wasm By Example
Language:
Introduction
Let's do a brief introduction into major concepts of WebAssembly:
- WebAssembly is a compile-targeted language for running bytecode on the web.
- Relative to Javascript, WebAssembly offers predictable performance. It is not inherently faster than Javascript, but it can be faster than JavaScript in the correct use case. Such as computationally intensive tasks, like nested loops or handling large amounts of data. Therefore, WebAssembly is a complement to JavaScript, and not a replacement.
- WebAssembly is extremely portable. WebAssembly runs on: all major web browsers, V8 runtimes like Node.js, and independent Wasm runtimes like Wasmtime, Lucet, and Wasmer.
- WebAssembly has Linear Memory, in other words, one big expandable array. And in the context of Javascript, synchronously accessible by Javascript and Wasm.
- WebAssembly can export functions and constants, And in the context of Javascript, synchronously accessible by Javascript and Wasm.
- WebAssembly, in its current MVP, only handles integers and floats. However, tools and libraries exist to make passing high-level data types convenient.
With that, let's take a look at our Hello World to see some of the concepts in action.