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What's stopping WebAssembly from effectively replacing JavaScript? (programming.dev)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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I've been wondering about this for a while and haven't really found a great answer for it. From what I understand, WASM is:

  • Faster than JavaScript

  • Has a smaller file size

  • Can be compiled to from pretty much any programming language

  • Can be used outside of the browser easier thanks to WASI

So why aren't most websites starting to try replacing (most) JS with WASM now that it's supported by every major browser? The most compelling argument I heard is that WASM can't manipulate the DOM and a lot of people don't want to deal with gluing JS code to it, but aside from that, is there something I'm missing?

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[–] 23 points 3 years ago

I've ported games to web using WASM. You still need to interact with HTML DOM using JS, no way around it.

You use WASM when you either need raw CPU speed, or you have some C++ code that you don't want to rewrite in JS.

If you just want to make a website, pure JS is better, unless you're that kind of dev who prefers to render their own text strings pixel by pixel.

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