First of all I wasn't talking about source code, I was comparing the output of a C/Rust->wasm compiler to the one of a C/Rust->x86 compiler. Since the wasm virtual machine has a JIT, I believe the compilation to wasm isn't too aggressive with optimizations. And since those make the binary bigger, I assume a wasm output would be lighter than an x86 one. I didn't benchmark it though.
And if you compare the size of the binary output with the size of the source code, the binary is bigger in many cases because of optimizations (and runtime size, for small programs). Additionally, the source code can be gziped with a good compression factor whereas the binary cannot. Then 99% of the time, the source code is lighter to send over the internet than the compiled binary.
And if you compare the size of the binary output with the size of the source code, the binary is bigger in many cases because of optimizations (and runtime size, for small programs). Additionally, the source code can be gziped with a good compression factor whereas the binary cannot. Then 99% of the time, the source code is lighter to send over the internet than the compiled binary.