Re:WebAssembly doesn’t make unsafe languages safe
by danShumway on Sunday November 25, 2018 @10:29PM
(#18530828)
> Technically, this can be implemented already. However, for successful adoption, a standard interface has to be defined.
This is literally the opposite of how the web works. The web is based on the Extensible Web Manifesto[0], where first we come to a consensus and see widespread adoption, and then we make a standard that reflects that consensus.
> We have a fantastic and highly secure execution environment from a host perspective. But from the guest perspective, that very same environment looks like MS-DOS, where memory is a giant playground with no rules.
Well, yeah. Add me to the list of people who are just kind of confused about why fixing C's problems is the responsibility of the browser, and why people thought that it was ever a priority for WASM. WASM is a VM-like isolation chamber for low-level code. It's not designed to make your code safe, it's designed to protect the host environment from unsafe code.
I've seen multiple people make the argument that manually laying out memory in WASM is a design flaw rather than one of the biggest points of the entire implementation. Manually laying out memory with close to zero restrictions or paradigms or safeguards is the thing that makes WASM good.
I feel like I missed something, I don't know where people got this idea that WASM was trying to be a higher level tool. It's an extremely low-level language-agnostic compile target for both safe and unsafe languages, and languages that care about safety should add their own safeguards as they see fit.
This is literally the opposite of how the web works. The web is based on the Extensible Web Manifesto[0], where first we come to a consensus and see widespread adoption, and then we make a standard that reflects that consensus.
> We have a fantastic and highly secure execution environment from a host perspective. But from the guest perspective, that very same environment looks like MS-DOS, where memory is a giant playground with no rules.
Well, yeah. Add me to the list of people who are just kind of confused about why fixing C's problems is the responsibility of the browser, and why people thought that it was ever a priority for WASM. WASM is a VM-like isolation chamber for low-level code. It's not designed to make your code safe, it's designed to protect the host environment from unsafe code.
I've seen multiple people make the argument that manually laying out memory in WASM is a design flaw rather than one of the biggest points of the entire implementation. Manually laying out memory with close to zero restrictions or paradigms or safeguards is the thing that makes WASM good.
I feel like I missed something, I don't know where people got this idea that WASM was trying to be a higher level tool. It's an extremely low-level language-agnostic compile target for both safe and unsafe languages, and languages that care about safety should add their own safeguards as they see fit.
[0]: https://github.com/extensibleweb/manifesto