WebAssembly Primer

WebAssembly (Wasm) is driving a new wave of cloud computing, and platforms like Kubernetes and Docker are evolving to take advantage.

Virtual Machines were the first wave, containers were the second, and Wasm is the third. Each wave has enabled smaller, faster, and more portable applications that can go places and do things the previous waves couldn’t.

Terminology

The terms WebAssembly and Wasm mean the same thing, and we’ll use them interchangeably. In fact, Wasm is short for WebAssembly and isn’t an acronym. This means the correct way to write it is Wasm, not WASM. However, be kind to people and don’t criticize them if they make unimportant mistakes like this.

We'll also focus on using WebAssembly with Kubernetes. This is one of many use cases covered by terms such as “WebAssembly outside the browser”, “WebAssembly on the server”, “WebAssembly in the cloud”, and “WebAssembly at the edge”.

Introduction

WebAssembly first appeared on the scene in 2017 and immediately made a name for itself by speeding up web apps. Fast-forward 7 years, and it’s an official W3C standard, it’s in all the major browsers, and it’s the go-to solution for web games and web apps that require high performance without sacrificing security and portability. ...