wasm isn't quite ready yet. It requires a javascript layer for interacting with the DOM, which is slower than plain javascript, and it doesn't support features like garbage collection which would make it a good target for some languages.

Also, javascript is plaintext and doesn't require a compile step, even though for some reason (cough Node) javascript development usually does, which makes it much more convenient for its original intended use case (a scripting language for the web) than wasm.

It's funny how everyone damns web technology for changing too fast.

But now that wasm is slightly available, the same people wonder why it's not self-evident that everyone should've jumped ship immediately to such fledgling tech that isn't even a drop-in replacement for Javascript.

Doesn't compiling a non-JS language into WASM require compiling a fat language runtime as well? That would put the output in couple-dozen-megabytes category.

> Doesn't compiling a non-JS language into WASM require compiling a fat language runtime as well?

Not necessarily. For a language with a large runtime that is either irreducibly large (perhaps because you need to support unrestricted eval) or for which you don't wish to spend the effort to allow your build toolchain to bundle only as much as your program actually uses, sure.

Because we have to support IE 11.

Some of us don't want to use a C/C++ inspired language for web development when there is a simpler solution offered.