> We moved forwards. The same is becoming true for HTML. Users demanded interactivity, and we gave them exactly that, and browsers turned in to things that run little applications rather than things that render mark up.
As I like to occasionally point out in wasm threads, the browser was a thing that ran little applications all along, in the form of Java applets. I have yet to see an explanation of how wasm applets are a different approach to the problem, but they sure are a more popular one.
The difference is timing. Computers weren't really ready for applets back in the mid-2000s when Java was pushing to be the thing that made web pages interactive. The performance (in terms of download speed, start up, and actually running them) was usually pretty horrible. Now the hardware has caught up it's the language that's the bottleneck, so WASM might prove to be a decent idea.
Also Java tried to be a gateway out of the browser to the OS, and that's just a terrible idea for security. WASM isn't trying to be that, and hopefully it never will.
>I have yet to see an explanation of how wasm applets are a different approach to the problem, but they sure are a more popular one.
Given that almost every thread about WASM includes someone like yourself wondering why it isn't just a pointless rehash of the JVM, I have to assume you would have already seen the numerous discussions about the differences at length.
As I like to occasionally point out in wasm threads, the browser was a thing that ran little applications all along, in the form of Java applets. I have yet to see an explanation of how wasm applets are a different approach to the problem, but they sure are a more popular one.