invariantJan 18, 2023
steve o'grady
we've been bullish on WebAssembly at @redmonk for a while. here are a couple of the reasons why.
https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2023/01/18/wasm/
Why You Should Pay Attention to WebAssembly

There may come a day when the humble web browser – having already yielded enterprise grade server side technologies like Firecracker, Isolates and Node.js – has nothing of interest left for the industry to extract. But that day has certainly not arrived yet, as the increasing chatter around WebAssembly (WASM) proves. The fact that people

tecosystems
Jan 18, 2023 at 1:59pmWeb
Show threadAnil DashJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk one of the remarkable things about joining Fastly has been getting that firsthand look at where the wasm world is headed, and it’s honestly incredible. Really, really cool stuff.
Show threadsteve o'gradyJan 18, 2023
@anildash @redmonk you all hired very, very well there
Show threadAnil DashJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk as ever, I got to wander into a room full of geniuses already doing amazing work, and then excitedly point at them and say, “look how cool that is!”
Show threadJohn SpurlockJan 18, 2023

@anildash @sogrady @redmonk

Image manipulation libs (rust -> wasm) running in a V8 isolate at your nearest Cloudflare colo: https://image-demo.denoflare.dev/

Popular js/ts bundler esbuild (go -> wasm) running in a V8 isolate at your nearest https://deno.com/deploy (GCP) colo: https://esb.deno.dev/

OpenAI Whisper (cpp port -> wasm) speech recognizer running in your browser (!): https://whisper.ggerganov.com/

Transform Images in a Cloudflare Worker

Transforms images inside a Cloudflare Worker using WebAssembly.

Show threadRich SharplesJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk I’ve been bullish on WASM/WASI for a while - it’s a gem of a technology. I think what it’s lacked is a strong commercial sponsor to set a direction and go hard. Maybe with the new interest that will change.
Show threadRand FitzpatrickJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk i’m also quite excited for Wasm as a sandboxed low latency way to run user defined logic in host applications, eg what Redpanda is doing
Show threadzeGolemJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk wait isn't that basically the jvm?
Show threadShadSterlingJan 18, 2023
@sogrady @redmonk I like the idea of WebAssembly, but it still seems years to decades away from being something I can just use, much less something I can expect an ordinary user to just run
Show threadKarl AuerbachJan 20, 2023

@sogrady @redmonk I can see this as a vast improvement over containers because it will allow much more sharing of library images underneath the interpreter/container layer and thus improve CPU/memory performance through better use of CPU caches.

BTW when are in-image libraries bound, at the compile stage or at runtime?