[ndesaulniers]

I actually think this is possible; and started prototyping it (because esprima is awesome, and not to many other languages have an equivalent that's so easy to use).

Some thoughts: I think it's easier to target C++ than C, since C++ can help you write more type generic code. I think it's easy to generate tagged unions, then for optimizations try to prove monomorphism. Finally, it may be simpler to start off with support for typescript, and fail to compile if there are any ANY types. I do think it's possible though. JS/TS -> C++ -> WASM (yes, I was out of my mind when I thought of this)

[johnhenry]

Isn't this kind of what V8 and other modern JavaScript engines do on the fly already?

[mikece]

Yes: one of the Google engineers working on V8 talked about it here: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/10/03/javascript-a...

It was this conversation that make me wonder if at some point in the future V8 might have experimental support natively for TypeScript but it makes more sense that compiling web assembly to native binary would make more sense. Who knows? It's an awesome time to be a programmer!