<story><title>No installation required: how WebAssembly is changing scientific computing</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00725-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>firtoz</author><text>&amp;gt; For instance, modern operating systems can handle 64-bit numbers. WebAssembly, however, is limited to 32 bits, and can access only 232 bytes (4 gigabytes) of memory. Furthermore, it cannot directly access a computer’s file system or its open network connections. And it’s not multithreaded; many algorithms depend on this form of parallelization, which allows different parts of a computation to be performed simultaneously. “A lot of older code won’t compile into WebAssembly, because it assumes that it can do things that can’t be done,” Stagg says.&lt;p&gt;I am surprised by the memory and 32 bit limitations... Are there plans to overcome them?&lt;p&gt;Edit: found it, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;WebAssembly&amp;#x2F;memory64&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;WebAssembly&amp;#x2F;memory64&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikewarot</author><text>&amp;gt;Furthermore, it cannot directly access a computer’s file system or its open network connections.&lt;p&gt;Those are its two strongest features, not bugs. If you&amp;#x27;re not going to respect those, just use native code, and the broken ambient authority model of computing, which never works out in the long run.&lt;p&gt;Edit: The article doesn&amp;#x27;t focus much on these limitations, but I think that putting up with the current limitations of WASM in terms of memory size or lack of threading might suck, but it&amp;#x27;s worth the ability to just try things out and run them without risking your whole computer.&lt;p&gt;Younger folks who never had a PC with only write protectable floppy drives missed out on a wonderful care-free period when you could just TRY OUT any new software, and your other data was safe, no matter what.</text></comment>
<story><title>No installation required: how WebAssembly is changing scientific computing</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00725-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>firtoz</author><text>&amp;gt; For instance, modern operating systems can handle 64-bit numbers. WebAssembly, however, is limited to 32 bits, and can access only 232 bytes (4 gigabytes) of memory. Furthermore, it cannot directly access a computer’s file system or its open network connections. And it’s not multithreaded; many algorithms depend on this form of parallelization, which allows different parts of a computation to be performed simultaneously. “A lot of older code won’t compile into WebAssembly, because it assumes that it can do things that can’t be done,” Stagg says.&lt;p&gt;I am surprised by the memory and 32 bit limitations... Are there plans to overcome them?&lt;p&gt;Edit: found it, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;WebAssembly&amp;#x2F;memory64&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;WebAssembly&amp;#x2F;memory64&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Extigy</author><text>Similarly for threads: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;webassembly&amp;#x2F;threads&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;webassembly&amp;#x2F;threads&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>