A Love Story Between JavaScript and C++
summary
Shows moving performance-critical functions from JavaScript/Node.js into C++ for procedural level generation, comparing two concrete approaches: using FFI to load native binaries into Node, and compiling C++ to WebAssembly with Emscripten to serve from Node.js+Express. Demonstrates calling a .wasm library from a server to animate a rectangle on a canvas, and reports speed benefits as well as practical downsides (extra complexity, native code maintenance, and WebAssembly’s experimental status in production).
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chapters (11)
- 0:00JavaScript and C++ love story
- 1:04JavaScript origin and evolution
- 3:12JavaScript performance problems
- 4:16FFIs with Node.js demo
- 8:34FFI disadvantages
- 9:57WebAssembly vs FFIs
- 12:06Emscripten setup
- 13:10Emscripten C++ demo
- 18:30JS and C++ with Emscripten
- 20:37Emscripten use cases
- 21:42Limitations and thoughts
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