Decoding the hype behind WebAssembly: Looking under the hood
summary
Explains WebAssembly as a compact bytecode executed on a stack machine with shared linear memory (64 KiB pages), and details decode/validate/instantiate phases and runtime choices like wasmtime and wasm3. Shows toolchains: clang/LLVM and Emscripten for C/C++/Rust, CPython compiled to WASM for interpreted languages, and Spin for server-side WASI functions. Demonstrates compiling SpiceDB (Go) to WASM running in-browser — it works and yields a 90% latency decrease versus cloud calls.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:29History of WebAssembly
- 3:13How WebAssembly works
- 8:56WebAssembly modules explained
- 12:51WebAssembly runtime execution
- 15:19Compiling to WebAssembly
- 17:46Demo: SpiceDB in browser
- 22:44WebAssembly on server side
- 24:49Demo: Rust Hello World with Spin
- 30:06Advantages of server-side WASM
- 31:55Challenges and future
- 34:22WebAssembly component model
- 35:26Q&A
related talks
53mWASM Wonders Decoding WebAssembly's Inner Workings
32mWebAssembly Demystified
16mWhy WebAssembly
27mHow WebAssembly is changing the Web and what it means for you
31mThe CPU in your browser: WebAssembly demystified
29mWhat is Web Assembly and Why Should you Care?
42mWebAssembly: A New Compilation Target for the Web
01h 08mOn WebAssembly