[cranx]

I can see value in running code on multiple browsers on multiple OSes via web pages. I’d hate to npm install 2k+ JS libraries I don’t know or understand to be able to compile a simple Hello World Kotlin program that runs on a webpage. There does seem to be some notion in the industry that everything should be in a browser/JS, sigh.

[DanielHB]

To run a wasm-compiled program in a webpage you need maybe 30 lines of JS total. Maybe a 10 more lines if your application wants to draw on the page through a canvas

[dns_snek]

It's a bit more complex than that, JS and WASM have a huge impedance mismatch (if you can call it that) because they can only communicate via shared memory and functions calls using numeric types as arguments.

As soon as you want to pass a string, struct or arbitrary map between JS and WASM you'll find yourself in a world of pain that comes from writing bindings that de/serialize data on both sides. Rust seems to have a somewhat capable bindings generator but the core issue still remains in any other language targeting WASM.

I'm not keeping myself up to date, but as far as I remember WASM/JS interface types proposal was supposed to address this issue. Has there been any progress on that front?