[jedisct1]

Sure, but this is off-topic.

My question was about why one would want to call WebAssembly functions from Go or PHP.

[8lall0]

You can use wasm as a lingua franca between languages if you have some good libraries or programs that you want to share.

[jedisct1]

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?

[chownie]

Because libmysql.wasm runs on any platform whereas libmysql.so has to be replaced with libmysql.dll on windows.

[pjmlp]

Just like libmysql.dll, that libmysql.wasm will only run on Windows, if there is a Windows application that knows what to do with it.

[asdkhadsj]

Yea, that's generally how code works - no?

This is simply an abstraction "everyone" has agreed on. Conceptually no different than if everyone had agreed on Java, or Python, or Brainfuck.

[pjmlp]

Exactly, and neither the first not the last at it.

[solidsnack9000]

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 script.

[pjmlp]

Just like we used to do with Pascal P-Code interpreters back in the day.