Even though the internet was created several years earlier, I think that the birth of the World Wide Web as we know it coincides with the release of the Mosaic browser in 1993.
In the past 22 years, everything to do with the web has changed incredibly fast and very few things have resisted change during this time. I can think of only three examples of this:
- IPv4 (born in 1981).
- HTTP 1.1 (born in 1997).
- Javascript (born in 1995).
The first was superseded years ago, even if IPv6 hasn’t been fully adopted despite several attempts.
In February finally HTTP/2 has been formally approved, and easily it will quickly replace version 1.1 after 18 years.
Yet Javascript, after 20 years, is still the only language universally used in web browsers. There were some attempts to replace it with Java applets, Flash or Silverlight but none of them has ever threatened Javascript’s position. On the contrary, it started to conquer the servers as well (primes example: Node.JS).
While in the server area, a plethora of different languages have been created aiming to simplify the development of web applications. In the front end, Javascript has been the only real option.
On 17th June 2014, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla jointly announced WebAssembly. This could be a turning point for front end development for several reasons.
Firstly, there have been several attempts to replace Javascript, but each one was backed by a single player. This time the three main browser developers have joined to overcome Javascript.
Secondly, they decided to not replace Javascript in a disruptive way, but rather putting at its side a new binary format, a sort of bytecode. The user will not see any difference; everything will continue to work in the same way for whoever wants to stay with Javascript, but a huge opportunity has been created for those who want to develop faster applications.
Thirdly, the performance improvement that WebAssembly could carry is impossible by any other means.
And lastly, WebAssembly is a brilliant solution, something so simple but so powerful, something that should have been invented years ago.
WebAssembly is simply a binary format for Javascript. It isn’t a real bytecode: It is the binary format for the Javascript Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), the product of the first step in the Javascript parsing, nothing more. It is not a new framework, not a new language, not another vulnerability option. Not another virtual machine, but still the good old Javascript one.
In this way the webserver will not send the pure Javascript text but instead will send the first elaboration for that code in a binary format. The benefits will be a more compact size for the code and less work for the browser compiler.
But the full potential comes from the use of asm.js, a highly optimizable subset of Javascript that Mozilla created some time ago and is already implemented by all the biggest browsers. asm.js code is only slightly slower than C code, giving CPU intensive applications a great opportunity. Moreover there are already cross-compilers that can parse other languages (C, C++, Java, C#, etc.) and produce asm.js code. This means that it’s been possible to compile game engine code to asm.js, and the same will happen for heavy desktop applications like CAD or image editors.
Silently asm.js and WebAssembly are leading us to a new internet age.
