Re:Kata Containers: Virtual Machines that feel and perform l...
by skybrian on Monday July 17, 2023 @02:08PM
(#36761824)
Something still compiles a WASM binary for the local system. Possibly, being able to optimize the WASM without recompiling it from source might be a win? Not needing separate binaries for ARM and x86 is nice, so it should run on a Mac more easily. Also, it runs on an edge server or in a browser, even on a phone, if you care about that.
I don’t think it will replace Docker files since they let you package up such a wide variety of existing server software and WASM is more limited. But if your software does compile to WASM then maybe you don’t care about that.
I think of WASM more like a plugin format, but I expect there will be a lot of engineering effort put into optimizing it, like happened with V8 for JavaScript. Not all web standards win, but betting against one that’s well-established and has a lot of support seems like a mistake.
I don’t think it will replace Docker files since they let you package up such a wide variety of existing server software and WASM is more limited. But if your software does compile to WASM then maybe you don’t care about that.
I think of WASM more like a plugin format, but I expect there will be a lot of engineering effort put into optimizing it, like happened with V8 for JavaScript. Not all web standards win, but betting against one that’s well-established and has a lot of support seems like a mistake.