<story><title>Brendan Eich: WebAssembly is a game-changer</title><url>http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042705/web-development/javascript-founder-brendan-eich-webassembly-is-a-game-changer.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>icedchai</author><text>The advantage? Instead of having access to a large, stable ecosystem with 20+ years of engineering behind it (Java&amp;#x2F;JVM), you&amp;#x27;ll get to use fun, new half-baked tools that barely work to build your webassembly apps.&lt;p&gt;In another 20 years time, we might be at the level of productivity we had 20 years ago with VisualBasic.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>How long before the first WebAssembly exploit?&lt;p&gt;(And what advantage does WebAssembly have over Java applets? We&amp;#x27;ve been down this road.)</text></item><item><author>CaptSpify</author><text>But they always end up abused. Everyone hates all of those, and that&amp;#x27;s good, because it causes people to steer away from them. Instead of throwing our hands up, and giving up, we should continue to try to keep those out.</text></item><item><author>teej</author><text>We have been doing this for -decades- with Shockwave, Java applets, and Active X controls.</text></item><item><author>supernintendo</author><text>I hate to break it to you, but we&amp;#x27;re already there. People have been using the web to deliver desktop-like applications for the past decade. Over that period of time, the number of people connected to the Internet has more than doubled [1] and will continue to increase. Whether or not an application is delivered through a browser or natively is inconsequential to most of these users. If we look at the list of the most popular websites [2] we see mostly content-delivery platforms (Google, Bing, Wikipedia etc.) with some popular web apps which resemble desktop software in complexity (Facebook, YouTube, Windows Live etc.)&lt;p&gt;So we have two paths forward. One, we could try to influence the habits of billions of Internet users who use desktop-like web applications in an attempt to restore the document-based nature of the web; or two, we could provide an alternative to the artifice of modern JavaScript development which allows for better applications to be written and distributed to users that use and rely on them. The latter initiative is the more realistic and productive one, in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;WebAssembly will not lead to the end-of-times of the Internet as a content delivery vehicle. It is a net positive for the parts of the web that do not fulfill that purpose. If you&amp;#x27;re worried about the free and open web as a publishing platform, look more to governments and corporations around the world that collude to limit our freedom of expression (Facebook, we&amp;#x27;re all looking at you [3]).&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.internetlivestats.com&amp;#x2F;internet-users&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.internetlivestats.com&amp;#x2F;internet-users&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_most_popular_websites&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_most_popular_websites&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;facebook-and-the-new-colonialism&amp;#x2F;462393&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;facebo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>Personally, I think this is terrible (and it really is a game-changer, only not the kind that I&amp;#x27;d be happy about). The further we get away from the web as a content delivery vehicle and more and more a delivery for executables that only run as long as you are on a page the more we will lose those things that made the web absolutely unique. For once the content was the important part, the reader was in control, for once universal accessibility was on the horizon and the peer-to-peer nature of the internet had half a chance of making the web a permanent read&amp;#x2F;write medium.&lt;p&gt;It looks very much as if we&amp;#x27;re going to lose all of that to vertical data silos that will ship you half-an-app that you can&amp;#x27;t use without the associated service. We&amp;#x27;ll never really know what we lost.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s sad that we don&amp;#x27;t seem to be able to have the one without losing the other, theoretically it should be possible to do that but for some reason the trend is definitely in the direction of a permanent eradication of the &amp;#x27;simple&amp;#x27; web where pages rather than programs were the norm.&lt;p&gt;Feel free to call me a digital Luddite, I just don&amp;#x27;t think this is what we had in mind when we heralded the birth of the www.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jjm</author><text>You really think closed source Oracle is going to make applets better? People don&amp;#x27;t like applets cause the experience sucks, the tooling generally lacks, and the libraries are old.&lt;p&gt;You say that webdev is Applet 2.0? ok sure, at least it&amp;#x27;s open and moving instead of EOL&amp;#x27;d [1] and the experience is better else wouldn&amp;#x27;t we all still be using Applets...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.v3.co.uk&amp;#x2F;v3-uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2443810&amp;#x2F;oracle-signals-the-end-of-java-applet-support-for-browsers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.v3.co.uk&amp;#x2F;v3-uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2443810&amp;#x2F;oracle-signals-the-en...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Brendan Eich: WebAssembly is a game-changer</title><url>http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042705/web-development/javascript-founder-brendan-eich-webassembly-is-a-game-changer.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>icedchai</author><text>The advantage? Instead of having access to a large, stable ecosystem with 20+ years of engineering behind it (Java&amp;#x2F;JVM), you&amp;#x27;ll get to use fun, new half-baked tools that barely work to build your webassembly apps.&lt;p&gt;In another 20 years time, we might be at the level of productivity we had 20 years ago with VisualBasic.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>How long before the first WebAssembly exploit?&lt;p&gt;(And what advantage does WebAssembly have over Java applets? We&amp;#x27;ve been down this road.)</text></item><item><author>CaptSpify</author><text>But they always end up abused. Everyone hates all of those, and that&amp;#x27;s good, because it causes people to steer away from them. Instead of throwing our hands up, and giving up, we should continue to try to keep those out.</text></item><item><author>teej</author><text>We have been doing this for -decades- with Shockwave, Java applets, and Active X controls.</text></item><item><author>supernintendo</author><text>I hate to break it to you, but we&amp;#x27;re already there. People have been using the web to deliver desktop-like applications for the past decade. Over that period of time, the number of people connected to the Internet has more than doubled [1] and will continue to increase. Whether or not an application is delivered through a browser or natively is inconsequential to most of these users. If we look at the list of the most popular websites [2] we see mostly content-delivery platforms (Google, Bing, Wikipedia etc.) with some popular web apps which resemble desktop software in complexity (Facebook, YouTube, Windows Live etc.)&lt;p&gt;So we have two paths forward. One, we could try to influence the habits of billions of Internet users who use desktop-like web applications in an attempt to restore the document-based nature of the web; or two, we could provide an alternative to the artifice of modern JavaScript development which allows for better applications to be written and distributed to users that use and rely on them. The latter initiative is the more realistic and productive one, in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;WebAssembly will not lead to the end-of-times of the Internet as a content delivery vehicle. It is a net positive for the parts of the web that do not fulfill that purpose. If you&amp;#x27;re worried about the free and open web as a publishing platform, look more to governments and corporations around the world that collude to limit our freedom of expression (Facebook, we&amp;#x27;re all looking at you [3]).&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.internetlivestats.com&amp;#x2F;internet-users&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.internetlivestats.com&amp;#x2F;internet-users&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_most_popular_websites&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_most_popular_websites&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;facebook-and-the-new-colonialism&amp;#x2F;462393&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;technology&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;facebo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>Personally, I think this is terrible (and it really is a game-changer, only not the kind that I&amp;#x27;d be happy about). The further we get away from the web as a content delivery vehicle and more and more a delivery for executables that only run as long as you are on a page the more we will lose those things that made the web absolutely unique. For once the content was the important part, the reader was in control, for once universal accessibility was on the horizon and the peer-to-peer nature of the internet had half a chance of making the web a permanent read&amp;#x2F;write medium.&lt;p&gt;It looks very much as if we&amp;#x27;re going to lose all of that to vertical data silos that will ship you half-an-app that you can&amp;#x27;t use without the associated service. We&amp;#x27;ll never really know what we lost.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s sad that we don&amp;#x27;t seem to be able to have the one without losing the other, theoretically it should be possible to do that but for some reason the trend is definitely in the direction of a permanent eradication of the &amp;#x27;simple&amp;#x27; web where pages rather than programs were the norm.&lt;p&gt;Feel free to call me a digital Luddite, I just don&amp;#x27;t think this is what we had in mind when we heralded the birth of the www.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oblio</author><text>The advantage is that in time people agree about web standards.&lt;p&gt;Good luck getting Visual Basic adopted as an standard ;)</text></comment>