RE: WebAssembly and Bytecode question

Public work on WebAssembly is on the GitHub repository at <https://github.com/webassembly>.

Look at the spec and design repositories for the direction of the work.  It is still experimental and proof-of-concept at the level currently documented, it seems to me.  The BinaryEncoding has some description at <https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/BinaryEncoding.md>.

The basic structure of WebAssembly, however it is encoded, is to carry an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) which can also be written in a kind of LISP-like semi-functional form.  This is a kind of functional form that is imperative and provides an eager evaluation model in which order of operation is predictable.  

An interesting aspect is working toward an initial MVP (Minimum Viable Product) release, <https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/MVP.md>.  (Tail recursion is not handled yet, for whatever that's worth.)

An aid in this is a proof-of-concept implementation that translates to JavaScript and can also be used on systems where a native processor is not (yet) available.  There are, in various states, translation of .NET IL to WebAssembly and also translation of WebAssembly to Java ByteCode.  

I also just noticed that, as for many assembly languages, attempting to translate back upwards to a human-usable higher-level source code will be tricky, especially since symbolic names are not necessarily preserved enough at the WebAssembly level.

People can satisfy themselves how close this is to Java ByteCodes, Python byte coding, etc.

 - Dennis

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Beyler, Jean Christophe [mailto:jean.christophe.beyler@intel.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 09:27
> To: 'Rahman USTA' <rahman.usta.88@gmail.com>; public-webassembly@w3.org
> Subject: RE: WebAssembly and Bytecode question
> 
> Dear Rahman,
> 
> 
> 
> From what I’ve seen, the binary format is still not defined so what the
> final format will be is difficult to tell.
> 
> 
> 
> However, from what discussions I have seen, it seems that there is
> interest in looking at a streaming + compression system so it won’t be
> instruction after instruction in binary format. But nothing is defined
> or set in stone yet, as far as I know :)
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jc
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Rahman USTA [mailto:rahman.usta.88@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 6:16 AM
> To: public-webassembly@w3.org
> Subject: WebAssembly and Bytecode question
> 
> 
> 
> Hi all ;
> 
> 
> 
> I want to ask a question about the WebAssembly. Can I think
> WebAssembly's binary form is similar to bytecode ?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Rahman USTA
> 
> Istanbul JUG
> 
> https://github.com/rahmanusta <http://www.kodcu.com/>

Received on Monday, 25 January 2016 22:01:16 UTC