WebAssembly has the chance to become for JavaScript what C, C++, and Fortran are for Python.
JavaScript has its limitations, as well as Python does. Python solves this by having an awesome native interface that allows easy integration ...
... of low-level libraries. JavaScript has C/C++ in Node. But in the browser? Sure, floating-point arithmetics can well be done with the help of WebGL and shader language, but there is no common low-level target for all of JavaScript.
This is where WebAssembly comes in. It could solve many of the problems one might run into when doing some heavy number crunching or string manipulation on a huge scale.
When you reach a hot path that you cannot or don't want to optimize any further, but which still ...
... isn't fast enough, you could swap this path out for an implementation in WebAssembly, and (hypothetically) gain a lot of performance.
This comes at the cost of switching languages, but perhaps preserves the benefit of readable code. The choice is up to you.
2️⃣ Okay, What Is WebAssembly?
WebAssembly (short WASM) is a byte code that can be processed and executed by a runtime. This runtime is built into most modern browsers and is also a part of Node.
It comes with a language that can be read by humans and a byte code that ...
... is optimized for being executed by runtimes and is especially meant as a compile target. You won't write WebAssembly yourself, although you could. You usually write code in a language you are comfortable with and then compile it down to WASM.
3️⃣ What Has Rust To Do With It?
Glad you ask! WASM is a first-class citizen of Rust. The tooling is mature and plentiful and the resulting binary code is actually one of the fastest and most efficient put out by any compiler currently on the market.
Take a look at the code below. That's everything. And yes, it does exactly what you might expect it to do!
When you compile this with the proper tooling you get:
- A WASM file containing the compiled code
- A JS file as an importable module
- A *.d.ts file for TS types
You could even pack this into an npm module and then import it into your own project. You won't have to deal with much integration work, only with the code you write. That's the awesome thing about Rust and its WASM tooling. After compilation, it's usable directly.
4️⃣ How To Get Started?
Rust has a book for everything. No difference for WASM.
The Rust WASM book is a great first entry into Rust and WebAsembly in combination with web development.
You hear some people talking about it, you might have a basic idea, but let's take a closer look because, in the end, it's not as difficult as it might seem from the outside!
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1️⃣ What Is It?
Test-driven development (short: TDD) is a software development technique.
Instead of writing all your code first and only then writing your tests, you start with tests, then code a little, then test again, and so on.
It is one specific form of the test-first approach and aims at making software development faster, more reliable, and safer to do. And it especially forces developers into a user role.
By writing tests first, you become a user. You are the first one to ...
They are both deeply immutable, so you no longer need to Object .freeze() your objects or use libraries like Immutable .js to gain unchangeable objects, and do you know what's even more awesome?
You can compare them with the strict equality comparison (===), ...
Here are some resources that help you to get into the language!
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1️⃣ "The Book"
This is the official Rust book. It covers everything the language has to offer and introduces feature after feature while enabling especially newbies to follow along from the simpler to the more difficult topics.
This project gives you small exercises that aim at getting you comfortable writing Rust code. Especially if you don't feel creative enough to think of a new project, this is a great way of still writing code.
The most-loved language, according to StackOverflow's yearly developer survey that not enough people seem to use professionally.
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1️⃣ What Is Rust?
Rust is a systems programming language that is compiled to binary. It has no runtime and instead uses a concept called "borrow checking". Developers don't need to explicitly free memory, the compiler does it for them.
The language itself is multi-paradigm, offering functional, generic, imperative, structured, and concurrent programming with a huge emphasis on performance, memory safety, and developer productivity.
What are NFTs? Everyone seems to be talking about them but what are they, and how can you use them?
Interested? Then this thread is for you!
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1️⃣ What Is An NFT?
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital assets. Just imagine a trading card where each card has unique information engraved into it. No two NFTs are the same and they are thus not interchangeable.
Other than crypto where one BTC is one and two BTC are two BTC, two NFTs are one NFT and one NFT. Only because you have two NFTs of the same type simply doesn't enable you to sum them up together.