Wikifunctions will use wasm and rust

A incredible performance optimisation for WebAssembly in Firefox!

(via https://korben.info/firefox-accelere-execution-webassembly-75-fois.html)

For example, the compilation time of the WebAssembly module used by Adobe Photoshop online was reduced from 4 minutes to just 14 seconds. Similarly, a test module for the JetStream 2 benchmark saw its compilation time reduced from 2.8 seconds to 0.2 seconds.

With containers, virtualized processes run natively in the host kernel, like any other. Except that their I/Os are carefully kept segregated from others in the host system.

Thought: containers are often too heavy for the job.

The root cause behind the heavy weight of containers is that they have been built for too many usecases.

WASI is a standard API to give WASM code the ability to do system-level I/O.

Solution?

To try to address this, we wanted to move all these heavy dependencies to a common runtime across services. So your tokio, hyper, sqlx and co (in the case of Rust), now all belong to a long-lived containerized process running persistently in the cloud. Whereas all your service logic, database and endpoint code build into lightweight WASM modules that are dynamically loaded in-place by this global persistent process.

I have a different preferred starting point which is less descriptive but more operational: WebAssembly is a new fundamental abstraction boundary.

But WebAssembly is a new point in this space. Unlike the Linux ABI, there is no fixed set of syscalls: WebAssembly imports are named, typed, and without pre-defined meaning, more like the C ABI. Unlike the C ABI, WebAssembly modules have only the shared state that they are given; neither side has a license to access all of the memory in the “process”. And unlike HTTP, WebAssembly modules are “in the room” with their hosts: close enough that hosts can allow themselves the luxury of synchronous function calls, and to allow WebAssembly modules to synchronously call back into their hosts.

Integrate a rust game compiled in wasm into sveltkit

A list of resources on Rust and Wasm :D