Thomas Steiner Jul 14, 2025

New #WasmAssembly podcast 🎙️ episode! Dart, Flutter, and WasmGC:

🍿 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgOABOvtBT8
🎧 https://wasmassembly.libsyn.com/dart-flutter-and-wasmgc-with-mer-aacan-and-martin-kustermann

🚀 In this episode of WasmAssembly, I chat with Ömer Ağacan & Martin Kustermann from the Dart team at Google about #Dart, #Flutter, #WasmGC, dart2wasm vs dart2js, Jaspr, and the future of #WebAssembly—both in and beyond the browser. A must-listen for #Wasm nerds!

Dart, Flutter, and WasmGC with Ömer Ağacan and Martin Kustermann

YouTube
zalim (kotlin wasm ...)Dec 11, 2024

\o/ Yay! 🎉

Safari 18.2 with WasmGC and tail call support has been released [1].

It's available on iOS 18.2, macOS 14 & 15, and others [2].

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-18_2-release-notes#Web-Assembly

[2] : https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-18_2-release-notes#Overview

#Wasm #WebAssembly #WasmGC

Safari 18.2 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation

Released December 11, 2024 — 18.2 (20620.1.16)

Apple Developer Documentation
zalim (kotlin wasm ...)Nov 4, 2024

Wow! 🤩
#WasmGC is on by default in iOS 18.2 Beta 2.

I'm looking forward to Safari 18.2 on macOS.
🤞Hope #WasmGC will be shipped there.

Thomas Steiner Nov 2, 2024
Safari 18.2 adds #WebAssembly Garbage Collection 🗑️ support: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-release-notes/safari-18_2-release-notes. This is a big deal because #WasmGC (https://developer.chrome.com/blog/wasmgc) allows for managed languages to come to the Web more efficiently, which enables use cases like compiling Java to #Wasm, as used by Google Sheets' 📈 calc worker: https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc.
Safari 18.2 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation

Released December 11, 2024 — 18.2 (20620.1.16)

Apple Developer Documentation
Thomas Steiner Aug 28, 2024
Safari Technology Preview 202 adds support for #WebAssembly Garbage Collection 🗑️: https://webkit.org/blog/15798/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-202/#:~:text=added%20support%20for%20garbage%20collection. That's a big deal for apps like Google Sheets, which use #WasmGC for their core operations like the calculation worker: https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc?hl=en. #Wasm
Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 202

Safari Technology Preview Release 202 is now available for download for macOS Sequoia beta and macOS Sonoma.

WebKit
Thomas Steiner Aug 27, 2024

My colleague Michael Thomas and I were on the Software Engineering Daily podcast 🎧 to tell the story of How Google Sheets Uses WasmGC: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2024/08/27/17045/.

The Google Sheets calculation engine was originally written in Java and launched in 2006. In the early days of the product, all calculation happened on the server. Google Sheets is now one of the first products at Google to use #WebAssembly Garbage Collection, or #WasmGC. Listen to the episode for the full details. #Wasm

How Google Sheets Uses WasmGC with Michael Thomas and Thomas Steiner - Software Engineering Daily

The Google Sheets calculation engine was originally written in Java and launched in 2006. In the early days of the product, all calculation happened on the server. However, starting in 2013 the engine has run in the browser using JavaScript. Google Sheets is now one of the first products at Google to use WebAssembly Garbage

Software Engineering Daily
Alex NedelcuAug 12, 2024

Initial WasmGC support was merged into ScalaJS's main branch, so it's coming 🎉

WasmGC is already supported by Chromium & Firefox, and will soon be shipping enabled by default in Safari as well.

#Scala #WasmGC

https://github.com/scala-js/scala-js/pull/4988

Initial implementation of the WebAssembly backend. by sjrd · Pull Request #4988 · scala-js/scala-js

This commit contains the initial implementation of the WebAssembly backend. This backend is still experimental, in the sense that: We may remove it in a future Minor version, if we decide that it ...

GitHub
Thomas Steiner Aug 8, 2024
After Chrome (https://developer.chrome.com/blog/wasmgc) and Firefox (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/120.0/releasenotes/#:~:text=webassembly%20gc%20is%20now%20enabled%20by%20default%2C%20which%20allows%20new%20languages%2C%20such%20as%20dart%20or%20kotlin%2C%20to%20run%20on%20firefox.%20this%20makes%20it%20possible%20for%20reference%20cycles%20between%20the%20guest%20language%20and%20host%20browser%20to%20be%20collected), it seems like WebKit, too, is close to shipping (hopefully, as something being in WebKit doesn't necessarily mean it'll be in Safari) #WasmGC support: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/pull/31854. We explained in the Google Sheets case study why this matters so much: https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc?hl=en. 👏
#Wasm #WebAssembly
WebAssembly Garbage Collection (WasmGC) now enabled by default in Chrome  |  Blog  |  Chrome for Developers

There are two types of programming languages: garbage-collected programming languages and programming languages that require manual memory management. With to WebAssembly Garbage Collection, garbage-collected languages can be ported to WebAssembly.

Chrome for Developers
Nicolas Fränkel 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇬🇪Jun 28, 2024

Why #GoogleSheets ported its calculation worker from #JavaScript to #WasmGC

https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc

Why Google Sheets ported its calculation worker from JavaScript to WasmGC  |  web.dev

Calculations in Google Sheets were initially done on the server, then on the client in JavaScript, and now on the client in WebAssembly Garbage Collection. This case study explains how and why.

web.dev
GripNewsJun 27, 2024
🌘 為什麼Google Sheets將計算工作從JavaScript轉到WasmGC？
➤ Google Sheets轉向WasmGC以提升計算效能
✤ https://web.dev/case-studies/google-sheets-wasmgc
Google Sheets將其計算工作從JavaScript轉到WasmGC，以提高計算效能。JavaScript雖然快速，但對於大型試算表而言並不夠快。WasmGC是一種專為垃圾回收語言（如Java）優化的WebAssembly擴展，可以在網頁上以近乎原生的速度執行。Google Sheets和Chrome團隊合作使用WasmGC，並進行了工程標準化與優化。這項合作為Google工程團隊如何有效地與Chrome合作，使更多Google應用程式運行於WasmGC上開創了先河。
+ 這是一個重要的轉變，有助於提升Google Sheets的效能以及用戶體驗。
+ WasmGC的應用前景非常廣泛，將推動網頁應用程式的發展。
#Google Sheets #WasmGC #JavaScript
Why Google Sheets ported its calculation worker from JavaScript to WasmGC  |  web.dev

Calculations in Google Sheets were initially done on the server, then on the client in JavaScript, and now on the client in WebAssembly Garbage Collection. This case study explains how and why.

web.dev