What's stopping WebAssembly from effectively replacing JavaScript? - eviltoast

I’ve been wondering about this for a while and haven’t really found a great answer for it. From what I understand, WASM is:

  • Faster than JavaScript

  • Has a smaller file size

  • Can be compiled to from pretty much any programming language

  • Can be used outside of the browser easier thanks to WASI

So why aren’t most websites starting to try replacing (most) JS with WASM now that it’s supported by every major browser? The most compelling argument I heard is that WASM can’t manipulate the DOM and a lot of people don’t want to deal with gluing JS code to it, but aside from that, is there something I’m missing?

  • AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.orgEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    The language best suited for wasm is easily rust. And you can still interface with the Dom using frameworks like yew sycamore or leptos.

    Debugging is still a little tricky but you can debug wasm in chrome and DWARF allows you to have source maps that map to your rust code. This is s problem the community is working to improve. Until then you have the full power of console log which is how a large portion of developers already debug their applications.