#DevDiscuss Archive


Tuesday January 8, 2019
9:00 PM EST

  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:04 PM EST
    The topic for #DevDiscuss is WebAssembly. Didn't we do this one not long ago or am I just drunk on all the distributed debugging I have been doing.
  • ThePracticalDev Jan 8 @ 9:04 PM EST
    Time for #DevDiscuss Tonight’s topic is WebAssembly Let’s chat! - What is WebAssembly? - How might WebAssembly affect your work in the future? - What are the most interesting use cases? - How might this upcoming technology affect decisions you make today?
  • ThePracticalDev Jan 8 @ 9:05 PM EST
    We’re going to chat on this topic for an hour. All are welcome as long as you bring positive energy and use the #DevDiscuss tag! ❤️
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:08 PM EST
    WebAssembly brings powerful lower level languages like C/C++ to the browser by providing compilation targets for them. It is essentially an assembly language that can run alongside JavaScript. #DevDiscuss
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:10 PM EST
    WASM means you can theoretically bring the power and performance of these established languages to the browser. But it also means you can make other browser native languages even more performant. Think how your OS is fast and snappy, now imagine that perf in browser #DevDiscuss
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:11 PM EST
    Super interesting use case I can see, very powerful browser based gaming. Things like VR/AR based gaming could be very performant in the browser potentially. #DevDiscuss
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:12 PM EST
    I would be very careful holding back your tech decisions based on WASM though. I think you have to really evaluate what you would gain from using it before jumping on the bus to use it. As is the case with any technology though. #DevDiscuss
  • ThePracticalDev Jan 8 @ 9:13 PM EST
    Live US political events tend to drown out #DevDiscuss, and combined with being off the last couple weeks, tonight's chat may not be as active. So I'll hang out with y'all to chat a bit but won't try to force it too much. 😊
  • rifforama Jan 8 @ 9:14 PM EST
    @ThePracticalDev Is there a book about WASM that's widely regarded as the go-to guide? #DevDiscuss
  • ThisIsMePreet Jan 8 @ 9:17 PM EST
    Web Assembly opens up a Web / Browser Stack layer that let's you ship text based code, which is directly complied to mchine code, rather than going through the JavaScript complier(Not the most efficient). #DevDiscuss
  • shannon_crabill Jan 8 @ 9:17 PM EST
    As a casual web coder, should I learn WebAssymbly right away? Or are there other technologies I should learn first? #devdiscuss
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    There have been a lot of nice DEV Posts on WebAssembly, here are a few. Starting from this post from this week: https://t.co/aVf7AMOXTG #DevDiscuss
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    Fast GIF parsing on the web with WASM + Wuffs #DevDiscuss https://t.co/b15FFZTwUl
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    Let's Build a Rust Frontend with Yew #DevDiscuss https://t.co/r5Q9HiUzD9
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    Elm functions in WebAssembly #DevDiscuss https://t.co/xK5abupPuR
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    Finally a Binary Web #DevDiscuss https://t.co/GBW9TbQCcI
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:19 PM EST
    Explain WebAssembly Like I'm five #DevDiscuss https://t.co/xshBJMU9mK
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:20 PM EST
    I would certainly learn other technologies/languages first. WASM isn't something you should jump right into, I think you have to have a pretty good use case for it. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @shannon_crabill
  • kethinov Jan 8 @ 9:20 PM EST
    I'm worried that WASM will be abused by people who want to avoid the DOM and we'll see the return of fat binary blob UIs like the bad old days of Java applets. That said I'm looking forward to seeing it used for code that isn't UI drawing and for 3d games. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @ThePracticalDev
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:23 PM EST
    This. This is a very valid concern and why I think the reason for using it should be carefully evaluated. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @kethinov, @ThePracticalDev
  • ThisIsMePreet Jan 8 @ 9:23 PM EST
    What's different is the TIME, the hardware / developer readyness is a important factor in any new technological breakthrough. Also WASM runs inside a Sandbox. Thus not having security problems that Flash had. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @oldJavaGuy, @ThePracticalDev
  • seahcy Jan 8 @ 9:24 PM EST
    Don't think there is a definitive guide but you can't go wrong with mdn docs #DevDiscuss https://t.co/pYPxfdkget
    In reply to @rifforama, @ThePracticalDev
  • Deanveloper Jan 8 @ 9:27 PM EST
    I've used webassembly already! I needed to parse TNEF (a legacy Outlook email format) files on a static webserver, but there weren't any JS libraries for TNEF. I found a Go library, and wrote a quick WASM app which parsed and displayed the TNEF file in-browser! #DevDiscuss
    • ThePracticalDev Jan 8 @ 9:04 PM EST
      Time for #DevDiscuss Tonight’s topic is WebAssembly Let’s chat! - What is WebAssembly? - How might WebAssembly affect your work in the future? - What are the most interesting use cases? - How might this upcoming technology affect decisions you make today?
  • x2plusy2 Jan 8 @ 9:28 PM EST
    I’m really excited for anything to do with Big Data/Data Visualization. Obviously we still can’t do major computation in the browser, but I have a few experiments where I’m parsing/calculating huge JSON files/API responses. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @ThePracticalDev
  • ThisIsMePreet Jan 8 @ 9:30 PM EST
    Another Fun Fact is that JavaScript is a slow language* , the way V8 ( Chromium's JavaScript Engine) makes JavaScript fast is by converting / Transpiling it to NOT JS for faster execution. Web assembly gives US the ability to ship fast NOT JS code #DevDiscuss *Relatively
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:30 PM EST
    Not that this tells the whole story, but I’m quite impressed by the browser adoption of WebAssembly https://t.co/fx39FN2luf #DevDiscuss
  • seahcy Jan 8 @ 9:33 PM EST
    I'm personally curious about how the combination of PWAs and webassembly will play out #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @ThePracticalDev
  • sergiodxa Jan 8 @ 9:41 PM EST
    Another important difference is that WASM is standard while those techs were private, that is IMo the main ret while they died and WASM is not going to die #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @ThisIsMePreet, @oldJavaGuy, @ThePracticalDev
  • nickytonline Jan 8 @ 9:43 PM EST
    WASM and Rust are definitely on my radar this year https://t.co/g4Ll6QLq5n #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @bendhalpern
  • Programazing Jan 8 @ 9:45 PM EST
    Check out my website/blog at https://t.co/4DAQVTUa1s #DevDiscuss
  • bendhalpern Jan 8 @ 9:46 PM EST
    WebAssembly is definitely one of the reasons I’m betting on the browser (including PWA) #DevDiscuss
  • kylegalbraith Jan 8 @ 9:48 PM EST
    PWA should be another topic we have on #DevDiscuss. There is a lot of cross over with WASM, but to me PWA is more approachable for quite a few more things right now.
  • shannon_crabill Jan 8 @ 9:50 PM EST
    I agree with this. There is a lot to PWAs #devdiscuss
    In reply to @kylegalbraith
  • sanchitos Jan 8 @ 9:51 PM EST
    I'm just hearing about Web Assembly. Definitely going to look at it. Thanks to #DevDiscuss
  • ThePracticalDev Jan 8 @ 9:54 PM EST
    In the last few minutes of #DevDiscuss, does anybody have any news to share, like a project or a personal win, or any other announcement?
  • pantularajesh Jan 8 @ 9:55 PM EST
    Like Nodejs enabled JavaScript developers (who earlier were limited to front end) the ability to write server or backend code. WebAssembly will enable the backend developers to built front end and enable them to be fullstack. #DevDiscuss
    In reply to @ThePracticalDev