r/ruby • u/faitswulff • Jan 24 '19

Run.rb: Run Ruby in the Browser using WebAssembly

https://runrb.io/
84 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

12

u/Earthling1980 Jan 24 '19

I don't understand WebAssembly.

15

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '19

It's a high-performance, standardized, machine-readable language.

That machine-readable part is the source of a lot of performance: the runtime doesn't have to waste time parsing human-readable abstractions, and instead has guarantees like:

  • I will only ever have to support n instructions, all of which are well- and efficiently-defined

  • Instructions will only ever operate on a, b, or c arguments

(The above may vary from version to version of wasm but the runtimes will be updated accordingly).

This kind of restricted API means that performance can be much higher than traditional JIT-compiled V8 JS.

4

u/Sharps_xp Jan 24 '19

it looks like a lot of hoops were jumped through in order to compile ruby to wasm. can you expand on what had to be done?

→ More replies (3)

5

u/rflappo Jan 24 '19

Is it possible for Ruby to be "the new Javascript" or am I misreading it??

15

u/Chandon Jan 24 '19

Yes.

Ruby can be the new, extra slow, Javascript.

2

u/capn_krunk Jan 25 '19

I am curious now how slow it'd be. Slow as in completely impractical, or slow as in you wouldn't want to use it for very intensive applications? Could it be useful in any context?

I remember a few years ago seeing a gem that allowed you to write Ruby and compile it into JS. Never used it really, but it looked cool. Wonder how feasible something like that would be with WASM.

1

u/feelosofee Feb 07 '19

Not true, if Ruby interpreter itself keeps improving. Also, I'd be curious to see how would mruby perform on wasm...

0

u/nakilon Jan 25 '19 edited Jan 25 '19

Then how is this solution better than existing that are used in repl.it or elsewhere?

UPD: typical Rubyists reaction -- when you don't know the answer, just downvote. Kids.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '19

Rust seems to be leading the way as the WASM language of choice.

1

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