There are other bytecode formats even simpler, UCSD Pascal P-Code for example.
The only big difference is that, like many other "modern" ideas, mainstream computers are catching up with mainframes.
The only big difference is that, like many other "modern" ideas, mainstream computers are catching up with mainframes.
It literally is a fancy turning machine bytecode that anyone can write an interpreter/transformer to actual cpu bytecode if needed.
As more languages support WASM, I bet we’ll see more of the front ends written in other languages.
WASM is to the web what JVMBC (java bytecode) is to apps. The open java spec flourished a big ecosystem like Adobe coldfusion/railo, jython for python, Nashhorn/rhino for JS, Jruby for Ruby, Jphp for php, cscjvm for C# and a host of others.
In my university, my compilers course assignment was to write a subset of C compiler that would output java bytecode. It really made me love compilers and programming languages.
I predict a bright future for WASM