WebAssembly 2.0 seeks to fix the gaps in current WebAssembly
I previously wrote about the excitement around WebAssembly and, having seen many technologies like this come and go in the past, my analysis of why WebAssembly might be a bad idea. In summary, it's not that it is technologically bad - it's simply that I don't see a space for it in a world where computing power has been becoming thinner on the client-side for years and microprocessor prices are skyrocketing.
(And yes, I know that WebAssembly can also run on the edge of the server-side. So can a lot of things, so whilst it's interesting I don't see much of a point of it there either except where performance is paramount and computational cost is high).
The other thing I found odd about WebAssembly was the need to wrap it up in Javascript (which most of the time could do the job WebAssembly was being deployed for). So, I was interested to see the W3C updating the WebAssembly 2.0 specification with, amongst other things, an improved interface to Javascript.
In my original article, I predicted that Javascript isn't going anywhere. Looks like the W3C agreed.
The new Web Assembly 2.0 specification can be found here:
- WebAssembly Core Specification Version 2.0, describing the next version of the core standard.
- WebAssembly JavaScript Interface Version 2.0, providing an explicit JavaScript API for interacting with WebAssembly.
- WebAssembly Web API Verson 2.0, describing the integration of WebAssembly with the broader web platform.
WebAssembly remains a technology to watch, but I suspect mainstream adoption and market penetration will be difficult for it to achieve against stalwart web development platforms PHP and nodeJS.
