Wasmer

Languages and libraries

webassembly runtime library

SHOW HN2019

44points
20comments
#853of 2,195 in 2019
Top 39%of 2019 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

2 positive, 4 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 3 critical, out of 9 comments about the project. Thread score -0.04.

Idea: 2 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Wasmer has been a 'less talk more action' project

    From 1 comment
    • WebAssembly is still being designed as we speak, but I love how Wasmer has been the "less talk more action" actor since the beginning. That being said, and while it's cool to be…
      jedisct1 on HN
  • Cross-language reuse of compiled code via WebAssembly is useful

    From 3 comments
    • > "I'd love to hear about some actual use case for this" I use WebAssembly for non security critical but fun in browser Augmented Reality experiences. We have an ever improving…
      mbzi on HN
    • You can use wasm as a lingua franca between languages if you have some good libraries or programs that you want to share.
      8lall0 on HN
    • Because libmysql.wasm runs on any platform whereas libmysql.so has to be replaced with libmysql.dll on windows.
      chownie on HN

Objections

  • Unclear use case versus existing shared libraries and FFI

    From 2 comments
    • WebAssembly is still being designed as we speak, but I love how Wasmer has been the "less talk more action" actor since the beginning. That being said, and while it's cool to be…
      jedisct1 on HN
    • Like... a shared library? I have a single libmysql.so file installed on my system, and it's used by Python, Ruby, C and PHP. Why should I replace libmysql.so with libmysql.wasm?
      jedisct1 on HN
  • WebAssembly still being designed and debated versus Java and earlier attempts

    From 2 comments
    • WebAssembly is still being designed as we speak, but I love how Wasmer has been the "less talk more action" actor since the beginning. That being said, and while it's cool to be…
      jedisct1 on HN
    • All previous attempts, starting all way the back to UNCOL in 1958? WASM only exists due to political reasons of Mozilla not embracing PNaCL. If Chrome already had the current…
      pjmlp on HN
  • Name 'Wasmer' confuses with the umbrella project

    From 2 comments
    • This seems a bit confusing since "Wasmer" is also the name of the umbrella project.
      skybrian on HN
    • The more usual solution would be to use a longer name containing "Wasmer". So, "Wasmer Go Library" or "Wasmer for Go" or something like that.
      skybrian on HN

Requests

  • Add a native baseline to the benchmark

    From 1 comment
    • Very cool! Could you add "native" to the benchmark so that we get a better idea of the scale?
      kstenerud on HN

Questions

  • What is the practical use case for calling WebAssembly from Go or PHP?

    From 2 comments
    • WebAssembly is still being designed as we speak, but I love how Wasmer has been the "less talk more action" actor since the beginning. That being said, and while it's cool to be…
      jedisct1 on HN
    • Sure, but this is off-topic. My question was about why one would want to call WebAssembly functions from Go or PHP.
      jedisct1 on HN
  • Why not just use a shared library?

    From 2 comments
    • Like... a shared library? I have a single libmysql.so file installed on my system, and it's used by Python, Ruby, C and PHP. Why should I replace libmysql.so with libmysql.wasm?
      jedisct1 on HN
    • A shared library isn’t really shareable across OSes or platforms. The neat thing about a WASM library is you can load it in your browser, in your native app or in your Python…
      solidsnack9000 on HN

Alternatives named

  • Shared libraries and FFI

    From 2 comments
    • WebAssembly is still being designed as we speak, but I love how Wasmer has been the "less talk more action" actor since the beginning. That being said, and while it's cool to be…
      jedisct1 on HN
    • Like... a shared library? I have a single libmysql.so file installed on my system, and it's used by Python, Ruby, C and PHP. Why should I replace libmysql.so with libmysql.wasm?
      jedisct1 on HN
  • Java bytecode

    From 2 comments
    • But that's not a bad thing. To me it appears better than previous attempts, I heavily look forward to it. The HN drama around WASM and cries of the days of Java always leave me…
      asdkhadsj on HN
    • And if Java managed to get a hold we'd be asking why this is better than Java (which doesn't exist with these features in this manner). That's the point. It's seemingly good, and…
      asdkhadsj on HN
  • ASM.js

    From 2 comments
    • > "I'd love to hear about some actual use case for this" I use WebAssembly for non security critical but fun in browser Augmented Reality experiences. We have an ever improving…
      mbzi on HN
    • And if Java managed to get a hold we'd be asking why this is better than Java (which doesn't exist with these features in this manner). That's the point. It's seemingly good, and…
      asdkhadsj on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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