10 WebAssembly interface for refactoring
This chapter covers
- Writing a WebAssembly (Wasm) module to run in a virtual runtime
- Integrating a Wasm module into a Rust executable for output
- Using Wasm memory for non-numerical data
Java was released as a programming language in 1995 with the bold slogan “Write Once Run Anywhere” (WORA). The concept of writing code that can run anywhere was not new; it had been done before in other languages like Smalltalk, and today it seems mildly unremarkable given the extensive package managers, interpreted languages, and sophisticated compilers available to developers. But what Java did was truly amazing. In the course of a few years, it became one of the most adopted languages; it remained so for two decades and nearly succeeded in inserting itself into every possible piece of software, including the web browser.
NOTE Java was at one point so popular that it influenced the name of an up-and-coming web language known now as JavaScript, even though the two are completely unrelated.