
Ask HN: Would you be interested in a Python to WebAssembly compiler? - syrusakbary
Hi HN!<p>I&#x27;m Syrus, from Wasmer (server-side WebAssembly runtime [1]). We are in the midst of prioritizing our next quarter and I thought it could be interesting to ask here if you would be interested in a Python to Wasm compiler.<p>We already have a prototype working, but need a bit more time to perfection it.<p>Here are some use cases of a Python-to-Wasm compiler:
1. Usage of python libraries in the browser easily
2. Creating universal binaries that work anywhere<p>How would you use a Python to Wasm compiler? I&#x27;m eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!<p>[1]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasmer.io&#x2F;
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billconan
I have used: [https://github.com/iodide-
project/pyodide](https://github.com/iodide-project/pyodide)

on my project
[https://epiphany.pub/post?refId=2684bc94f9fcb9ffe637ebfbeba2...](https://epiphany.pub/post?refId=2684bc94f9fcb9ffe637ebfbeba2af8c797c6ad9a66181026ee4bd3806b6f211)

the experience is kinda poor, it's very very slow. At first I thought the
reason was the packages are too huge, it took a very long time to download
them. But it turned out that the slowness comes from the python runtime when
loading a package.

I guess directly compile python into wasm will make code execution faster, but
I'm interested in building a scripting environment.

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syrusakbary
Yeah, Pyodide is great, although a bit slow.

I think the targets are a bit diferent: Pyodide is just a notebook for
executing Python code and what I wanted is to transform Python code to Wasm
(this implies some speedup as well).

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starlingforge
I'd use it for something. I wanted to use pyiodide but the learning curve and
the browser fiddling did me in. If it was fast, could be embedded in nodejs
and deno it would fill a void. Granted, a big part of pythons draw is the std
library, which is also part of why I don't think pyiodide is ideal.

~~~
syrusakbary
Great feedback, thanks!!

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jedieaston
Yep. But Pyodide is under development and has numpy and friends already...

[https://github.com/iodide-project/pyodide](https://github.com/iodide-
project/pyodide)

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j88439h84
Tell Beeware about it

[https://gitter.im/beeware/general](https://gitter.im/beeware/general)

