[bigato]

if parts of the web browser start being shipped as wasm code, we will eventually reach the point where the web browser shipped to the user is only a wasm vm, and all the rest will be shipped as optional libraries or even downloaded on the fly. Even stuff like the html engine, the css, and the javascript. In that world, using the messy web standards evolved over time would be optional. The web browser would then become the universal virtual machine that the world seems to want it to be, instead of a browser. The web would be the app distribution system. One could for example, decide to write their site using tcl/tk.

Implementing the wasm vm and its basic apis would be simpler in a new operating system. Because the way it is now, the web browser itself is more complex that writing a simple operating system. That hinders innovation in the Operating System space.

[greggman3]

There's a HUGE way to go to get there and I don't believe we really ever will. OSes support every language, 100s of Input Method Editors, all the issues of left to right and more complex text rendering than English. Asking every webpage to provide all of that and to keep all of that up-to-date would be a huge loss for the web and app dev in general.

[swsieber]

> Consequently, there are now around 40 high-level programming languages that support WebAssembly, including C and C++, Python, Go, Rust, Java, and PHP. Wasm is not a new language, but a portable, pre-compiled, cross-platform binary instruction set for a virtual machine that runs in the browser.

https://blog.stackpath.com/webassembly/

It doesn't seem terribly unlikely. I don't think it's the goal, but it seems like a fairly likely outcome.

[Yizahi]

You should check this talk about JS and ASM :) https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

[allendoerfer]

All I can see is people wanting to use web-technologies to develop applications. So I would place my bet on the DOM/CSS evolving further and swallowing everything. JavaScript might get some contenders.

[pjmlp]

50 years later the mainframes have won.

Language environments and containers.

[marcosdumay]

They have been "winning" since they started losing. Our PCs are much more similar to 80's mainframes than to 80's PCs.

[foobiekr]

But ... in a lot of ways worse.

[bigato]

Good point. That should probably be the case for the majority of generation who entered the programming world in the last 20 years, which is quite a lot of people. But yet, old farts like me may disagree.

[mwcampbell]

> One could for example, decide to write their site using tcl/tk.

Please, please don't do that. Tk is completely inaccessible to blind people via screen readers, and probably people with some other disabilities as well, on all platforms. Most toolkits written by people who decide to throw out those messy web standards would probably have the same problem.

[edwintorok]

Exactly my thoughts when I first read of WASI: conceptually you could now have a WASI runtime ("OS") and an HTML.wasm potentially independently developed and swappable. And since WASI is a lot smaller surface, it is easier to audit, test, reimplement, etc.