InfoQ Homepage WebAssembly Content on InfoQ
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New JavaScript Interop Improvements in .NET 7 RC 1
The release of .NET 7 RC 1 has introduced the new wasm-experimental workload and new JavaScript interop features that allow invoking of .NET code in JavaScript applications running on WebAssembly without using the Blazor UI component model. Until now, it was possible to use WebAssembly without the need for Blazor by leveraging the Mono WASM SDK, Uno.Wasm.Bootstrap library or the NativeAOT LLVM.
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eBPF and Wasm: Exploring the Future of the Service Mesh Data Plane
With the advancement of lightweight runtimes, such as eBPF and WebAssembly (WASM), we are now seeing a new generation of service mesh data plane solutions that are lighter, safer, and faster.
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Deno 1.10 Released with Shared Wasm Memory and Web Storage Support
The Deno team recently released Deno 1.10 with shared WASM memory support, an implementation of Web Storage API, remote import maps, improvements to the built-in test runner, and more.
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Grain: Your WebAssembly-First Programming Language - WebAssembly Summit 2021
Oscar Spencer recently presented Grain, a new strongly-typed, high-level language that compiles to WebAssembly. Grain includes functional programming features (e.g., type inference, pattern matching, closures) while allowing mutable variables. Grain also has a standard library with composite data structures (Option, Stack, Result) and system calls (e.g., I/O, process handling).
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.NET News Roundup - Week of April 26th, 2021
This past week was marked by Microsoft joining the Bytecode Alliance. InfoQ examined this and a number of smaller stories in the .NET ecosystem from the week of April 26th, 2021.
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The "Wasmer" WebAssembly Runtime is Generally Available
Wasmer recently released version 1.0 of its server-side WebAssembly runtime, and it is now generally available. Wasmer enables super lightweight containers based on WebAssembly. Version 1.0 marks a significant milestone on a journey, which started more than two years ago with version 0.1.0. It is an indicator of the growing interest in WebAssembly on the server-side.
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Rust China Conf 2020 Showcases Production-Ready Rust Applications
Rust China Conf is the largest grassroots event for the Rust programming language in China. As Amazon, Microsoft, and others in the US, Chinese tech companies are increasingly using Rust in mission-critical production software systems. Huawei, Bytedance (parent company of Tiktok), Ant Group, Agora, and other big companies and startups showed how they used Rust at the confernce.
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New Chrome Extension to Debug Compiled Wasm Code Stepping through C++ Source Files
Google recently presented the progress made by the Chrome DevTools teams to improve the developer experience of debugging WebAssembly files. A new extension (in beta) allows developers to debug C and C++ apps compiled to WebAssembly by stepping through the original source code.
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Bytecode Alliance Lays out Plans for WebAssembly on the Server-Side
Bytecode Alliance laid out a concrete vision for wasm-on-the-server. At the same time, the Wasm open-source community is now far larger than the corporations in Bytecode Alliance. There are multiple Wasm VM implementations, complier toolchains for programming languages, as well as host Operating Systems and environments (e.g., Node.js, Deno, or blockchains).
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Markdown-Wasm, a Very Fast Markdown Parser Written in WebAssembly
Rasmus Andersson released markdown-wasm, a very fast Markdown parser ported from C to WebAssembly. markdown-wasm is twice as fast as the best JavaScript Markdown parser in one benchmark. markdown-wasm remains additionally small (31KB gzipped).
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WebAssembly Reference Types Implemented in wasmtime, Lets Wasm Modules Handle Complex Types
Nick Fitzgerald recently announced the implementation of the WebAssembly reference types proposal in wasmtime. With reference types, a WebAssembly runtime can handle references to complex host objects (e,g, DOM nodes) instead of only integer and floating-point values. Reference types pave the way for more WebAssembly features – interface types, garbage collection, module linking, and more.
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Zoom on Web: WebAssembly SIMD, WebTransport, and WebCodecs
At the recent web.dev live event, Google V8 product manager Thomas Nattestad explained some of the proposed additions to the web to support Zoom and other video conferencing features within the web browser.
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WebAssembly Used to Extend Life of Flash Legacy Content
Adobe will stop distributing and updating Flash Player after December 31, 2020. The large amount of Flash content accumulated over the years is however not entirely lost. Ruffle, a Flash emulator, and CheerpX, an x86 virtualization technology, both leverage WebAssembly to play .swf files in the browser.
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Krustlet: a kubelet Written in Rust to Run WebAssembly Workloads in Kubernetes
Deis Labs has released Krustlet, an open-source Kubernetes kubelet written in Rust to run web assembly workloads within Kubernetes. Krustlet's initial version is functional to run an essential workload as it doesn't have support for features like pod events or Init Containers yet. Applications must implement the WebAssembly system interface (WASI) as Krustlet only runs WebAssembly containers.
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WebAssembly Extended with Hot Reloading, Remote Debugging and Uniform Hardware Access
Researchers recently presented WARDuino, an extension to WebAssembly targeting microcontrollers. WARDuino addresses common development pain points by adding live code updates, remote debugging, and access to the microcontroller’s hardware modules. WARDuino’s virtual machine runs five times faster than Espruino (a popular JavaScript interpreter for microcontrollers) on some benchmarks.