To understand why there was a requirement for WebAssembly, let’s take a not-so-quick stroll down memory lane. And why it hasn’t replaced Javascript yet. By Divya Mohan.
So what exactly is WebAssembly? It is a binary instruction format for stack based machines.It is closer to machine code than either asm.js or JavaScript. Therefore, it is a no-brainer that decoding, compiling, fetching, and optimizing WebAssembly code takes lesser time. Why?
The guide then explains:
- History of the WWW
- Enter JavaScript
- asm.js
- Enter WebAssembly
Introduced as a subset of JavaScript, the asm.js specification aimed at describing a sandboxed virtual machine for memory-unsafe languages like C or C++ and provide a low-level, efficient target language for compilers. Implemented first by the Mozilla Firefox browser, this spec introduced performance improvements via employment of ahead-of-time optimizing compilation strategy for valid asm.js code by the JavaScript engines.
WebAssembly, abbreviated Wasm, was designed to be a portable compilation target for programming languages, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications.
WebAssembly, abbreviated Wasm, was designed to be a portable compilation target for programming languages, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications. Good read!
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