[pizlonator]

Figma is one site. There are also a handful of other sites that use wasm. But most of the web does not use wasm.

> Where it is currently fairly painful is in writing traditional websites, given all the glue code required to interact with the DOM - exactly what these folks are trying to solve.

I don't think they will succeed at solving the pain, for the reasons I have enumerated in this thread.

[azakai]

> Figma is one site. There are also a handful of other sites that use wasm. But most of the web does not use wasm.

Most of the web also doesn't use the Video element, but it isn't 'a dud' either.

Video and wasm are critical for a small subset of the web. That subset includes YouTube and Netflix for Video, and Figma and Photoshop and Unity games for wasm.

[swiftcoder]

I mean, you are obviously entitely to your opinion, but folks have been solving this stuff the hard, glue-based way for ages now, and are using WASM wherever there is an advantage to do so. Getting rid of the glue layer and the associated performance problems can only accelerate those efforts

[pizlonator]

> I mean, you are obviously entitely to your opinion

I'm trying to explain to you why attempts to make wasm mainstream have failed so far, and are likely to continue to fail.

I'm not expressing an "opinion"; I'm give you the inside baseball as a browser engineer.

> Getting rid of the glue layer

I'm trying to elucidate why that glue layer is inherent, and why JS is the language that has ended up dominating web development, despite the fact that lots of "obviously better" languages have gone head to head with it (Java, Dart sort of, and now wasm).

Just like Java is a fantastic language anywhere but the web, wasm seems to be a fantastic sandboxing platform in lots of places other than the web. I'm not trying to troll you folks; I'm just sharing the insight of why wasm hasn't worked out so far in browsers and why that's likely to continue

[swiftcoder]

> why JS is the language that has ended up dominating web development

JS was dominating web development long before WASM gained steam. This isn't the same situation as "JS beating Java/ActivX for control of the web" (if I follow the thrust of your argument correctly).

WASM has had less than a decade of widespread browser support, terrible no-good DevEx for basically the whole time, and it's still steadily making it's way into more and more of the web.

[pizlonator]

WebAssembly has had extraordinary levels of investment from browser devs and the broader community.

> terrible no-good DevEx for basically the whole time

I'm telling you why.

> still steadily making it's way into more and more of the web.

It is, but you can still browser the web without it just fine, despite so much investment and (judging by how HN reacts to it) overwhelming enthusiasm from devs