preface
My experience with WebAssembly (Wasm) started with server-side applications rather than browser-based ones. While Wasm was initially created for web performance, I focused on its applications in cloud computing. I worked on SpiderLightning—a collection of WebAssembly Interface Types definitions that simplified application development by abstracting away environmental complexities. This work evolved into wasi-cloud-core, a set of cloud interaction interfaces that’s now part of the WASI standards, where I contribute as a champion.
The idea for this book emerged from one of my talks at WasmCon, where Manning editor Jonathan Gennick approached me about writing a comprehensive guide to server-side Wasm. The timing felt right—Wasm was gaining significant traction beyond the browser, but documentation and learning resources remained scarce. While AI topics dominate technical conferences, Wasm actually rated higher than AI in engagement at KubeCon EU 2024 in Paris, highlighting the community’s hunger for knowledge in this space.
Currently, I work on Hyperlight, which, through its sister project Hyperlight-Wasm, enables Wasm adoption in public clouds like Azure by providing hardware-based isolation for multi-tenant workloads. This work has exposed me to different perspectives on where Wasm might fit in the server-side landscape, particularly in isolation-critical environments.