For over two decades, JavaScript was the only programming language that could run in browsers.
JavaScript did pretty well, but many other programming languages are faster.
WebAssembly offers an efficient, open, and safe option thats part of the open web platform.
Introducing WebAssembly
WebAssembly (WASM) is an efficient, low-level, portable W3C-standardized language.
It defines a code format and interfaces for programs to interact with platforms on the web.
you could compile most programming languages into WebAssemblys binary code format.
Browsers can interpret and spin up the resulting WASM code just as they do with regular JavaScript.
WebAssembly became a W3C standard in 2019, with support in many programming languages.
A lot of programming languages, including those that are server-side specific, support WebAssembly.
These include Rust, Go, Python, C++, TypeScript, Java, PHP, and Ruby.
How WebAssembly Works
WASM exists as a compilation target for other programming languages to transpile into.
Translating it into native machine code means it can run at high speed, typically faster than JavaScript.
One of the critical features of WASM is JavaScript interoperability.
JavaScript frameworks can take advantage of WASM for higher performance.
WASM uses a sandboxed execution model similar to JavaScript.
Many modern browsers support WASM, including Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
Languages like Go andRust support WASMout of the box.
Why the Web Needs WebAssembly
JavaScript has limited functionality by design.
Its not one of thefastest or most performant languagessince it started as a scripting language for the web.
WebAssembly also offers more portability and flexibility to languages that dont run on the web.
WebAssembly Adoption Is Fast Paced
Many companies and developers are building applications with WebAssembly.
Google, Dropbox, and Cloudflare actively use WebAssembly in some of their applications.
WebAssembly is popular among Python, C++, and Rust developers.
