Re: Changing the name and focus of this group from WebAssembly and binary code to WebCore etc and source code.

Note that this was also posted as a github issue,

https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/483

and there is a lengthy discussion there, for those that are interested.

On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 11:25 PM, JS Stats <info@jsstats.com> wrote:

> I would like to make the case to the members to consider changing the
> focus of this group from the development of a binary code to a source
> code with a binary encoding. The difference might not sound significant
> at first but it might make a significant difference to the intent of
> code deployed to the web in binary format.
>
> In the current case source code is 'compiled' or 'assembled' into the
> binary format and deployed in binary format. With this focus the
> developers might be tempted to abandon any claim to the binary encoding
> being related to the source, and for example move to a linear virtual
> machine code without expressions or structured flow control etc.
>
> While it might be possible to 'view-source' the deployed code it might
> be consider 'disassembly' or 'reverse engineering' which are very loaded
> terms for IP.
>
> I believe that although the operators being developed are primitive and
> close to the hardware, that these can still be used in a structured
> source code with expressions and local variables etc to make the code
> more readable and easier to write. A binary encoding would still be
> developed that would be a one-to-one reversible encoding of the source
> (basically a lossless compression of the source). I believe this could
> still be a good target for the use case of a compilation target which
> seems to be the current focus.
>
> I have been working away at trying to use type derivation to help
> eliminate bounds checking, and there has been another recent proposal by
> sunfish to use some loop analysis to help eliminate bounds checks too,
> and while I don't have anything concrete I suspect this will be much
> easier to define in structured code. For example, a common case is to
> define a local constant variable with a typed that can be derived such
> as masking a value or asserting its bounds.
>
> The new name would remove 'Assembly' and make it clear this is a source
> code although primitive. For example WebCore if it is not taken. The
> Specification language would change it's emphasis to being a source
> code, while still supporting the use case of being a compilation target.
>
> Would there be any support for such a re-focusing of the group, or are
> the majority of people wanting a web machine code binary format to
> compile to?
>
> Regards
> Douglas Crosher
>
>
>