> I mean, it can run in a web browser, sure, but if what you're building is a server, the chances that you're going to want to run it in a web browser in the end are practically nil, aren't they?
We’ve been able to compile almost any language to native code runnable on a server for several decades. That problem is solved. We don’t need any new tech here.
The big thing about WebAssembly was that it promised us the ability to do that in the browser too, where we until recently were cursed with JavaScript as our only option to run code.
So yes. People intend to use WebAssembly in the browser. For many people that is its primary and only use-case.
> That problem is solved. We don’t need any new tech here.
Solved by who exactly? You can't tell me with a straight face if I can show you a way that you can spend 1/100 of what you currently do on servers that run full-time by changing the architecture into a serverless one, with web assembly providing the faster startup times required to make it perform acceptably, that you're not interested in saving that money.
Performance is always a goal. Anyone that tells you performance is a solved problem is lying.
But perhaps we've heard "serverless is going to save you" one too many times from AWS and friends, and now we don't want to hear it anymore.
News flash, AWS and Azure both want to sell you more servers. So they cloud providers are all not going to seriously invest in serverless. It's not a solved problem at all. They'd all love it if serverless was an abominable failure altogether. Which is how I'll bet you actually perceive all that mess, am I right? Give me more servers, they actually fucking work.
The goal for me has never been to run code in web browsers. It has always been to write code in whatever language suits me, and run it wherever, especially libraries for reuse. To avoid rewriting the same code over and over. I never pick the browser as a target, because it puts so many things irredeemably outside of my control (which it must, because it's not my machine.)
We’ve been able to compile almost any language to native code runnable on a server for several decades. That problem is solved. We don’t need any new tech here.
The big thing about WebAssembly was that it promised us the ability to do that in the browser too, where we until recently were cursed with JavaScript as our only option to run code.
So yes. People intend to use WebAssembly in the browser. For many people that is its primary and only use-case.