WebAssembly (WASM) is a cutting-edge technology that brings high-performance applications to web pages by executing native code. It's an open standard that's supported by all major web browsers. WASM allows data-intensive applications like 3D graphics, video decoding, or physics simulation to run at near-native speed. For senior engineers like you with ample web development experience, this can be an indispensable tool to streamline and enhance your applications.
Let's take an analogy to understand it better. Imagine you're working on designing an interactive and highly dynamic web application related to basketball matches, which needs real-time statistical analysis of players' performance. Now, you want your application to perform these complex calculations quickly and efficiently. Here is where WASM comes into play. It facilitates the deployment of high-performance C++ (or any other language) modules in your JavaScript environment. Just like Kobe Bryant can add an edge to any basketball team with his quick decisions and spot-on throws, WASM adds an edge to your web application with increased execution speed and performance.
Technically, WASM is a binary instruction format, with a corresponding textual assembly language. It acts as a compilation target for languages like C++, allowing developers to run C++ code snippets directly in a JavaScript environment. The sample C++ code snippet you see in the code field contains a skeleton where WebAssembly would be used to accomplish such tasks.
In the upcoming screens, we will dive deeper into the world of WASM, exploring its many facets and learning about how to leverage it to supercharge web applications.
xxxxxxxxxxusing namespace std;int main() {// Code to use WebAssembly in C++ by importing <emscripten/val.h>}