In this article I will try to answer the most common questions about WebAssembly.
If you prefer the video format, a podcast is available here.
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What is WebAssembly?
WebAssembly is a binary code standard that is understandable by modern browsers.
The pointy ones won't talk about byte code but dASTAST (Abstract Syntaxt Tree) but that's another debate.
So WebAssembly is a new language?
No, it's a binary format like the assembler.
It was designed to be used with high-level languages like C/C++/Rust, C# to design web applications.
For example, for C# instead of producing IL it could create a binary WebAssembly.
Do we need to generate a binary for every x86, x64 and ARM platform?
No, binary is platform-independent: there will be no specific compilation for ARM/x32/x64.
Is this a company that creates WebAssembly?
No, it's the same consortium as HTML: the W3C.
What makes this initiative very interesting is that neither Adobe nor Microsoft are trying to impose a new binary format.
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Which browser supports this?
WebAssembly is supported by the four main browsers: Edge, Chrome, Firefox and WebKit.
And it's been that way since late 2017.
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What are the advantages of WebAssembly over JavaScript?
The WebAssembly binary is already compiled when it reaches the browser:
Its parsing is very easy: according to recent experiments it would be 20 times faster than a JavaScript file
This is not a text file so it will be « minus big
It is therefore faster to load and faster to execute.
It is also faster to perform calculations: it will therefore be more suitable for compression, image manipulation, video games...
Is WebAssembly safe?
WebAssembly is in a secure sandbox running environment.It inherits the same security strategies as JavaScript.
Is WebAssembly going to replace JavaScript?
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WebAssembly is not intended to replace JavaScript. It is designed to complement JavaScript with superior performance. It is an alternative to building web applications or 2D/3D games, for which it is more optimized.
Can WebAssembly communicate with JavaScript?
Yes, I did. WebAssembly JavaScript Interface, which provides an explicit JavaScript API to interact with WebAssembly.
Is WebAssembly the new Flash / Silverlight / JavaFX?
WebAssembly has some similarity to these engines.
But unlike his elders:
- There is not a single big company trying to set its own standard.
- It's not a plugin to add to the browser, the engine is already integrated and functional in the web browser
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What tools can generate WebAssembly binaries?
In dotnet 3 tools allow to generate WebAssembly:
Unity3D : 2D and 3D video game engine
Blazor The ASP.NET team has brought the Razor view engine into WebAssembly.
Uno Platform: UWP everywhere: nventive allowed the UWP code to run on iOS/Android but also WebAssembly.
These three tools are still in beta on WebAssembly byte code generation, so we're going to have to wait a little longer before we start migrating our web applications to this new format.
Happy coding
