Keynote - WebAssembly beyond the browser

Keynote - WebAssembly beyond the browser

Speaker(s)
Dr. Merlijn Sebrechts
Duration
Session track
Code & Development
Experience level
Intermediate
Description

Updating software on IoT devices is a pain, leading to an "internet of insecure things". Deployment speed has massively improved for cloud applications, but IoT development is still in the dark ages, where simple updates can take months or years.

WebAssembly is a great for cross-platform software distribution, but it's long been closely tied to browsers, due to its heavy reliance on JavaScript. The WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) is the final piece of the puzzle to rip WebAssembly out of browsers and let it flourish elsewhere.

With WASI, WebAssembly is suddenly being used far beyond the browser: on microcontrollers, as a high-density serverless platform, and as a universal plugin format to extend any application.