Re:WASM 3.0 Completed
by davexunit on Wednesday September 17, 2025 @04:19PM
(#45280900)
Wasm could have had a concept of a string. I frequently mourn the rejection of the imo excellent stringref proposal. https://github.com/WebAssembly/stringref
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wasm 3 has the JavaScript string built-in now according to TFA
That's a different thing. There is still no string type. JS string built-ins are a kludge for web targets only.
Just reimplement those JS string builtins in another host environment and provide it as a Wasm library. Stringref was basically just proposing pushing JS strings down into Wasm, which many in the CG saw as a big chunk of one specific platform just moving down a layer, into the engine.
Having used and implemented stringref and having seen the built-ins proposal I really think stringref is a much better developer experience and the CG is wrong. The built-ins are better than nothing but it's a terrible hack.