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WebAssembly (WASM for short) is an emerging web technology that has the potential to greatly accelerate web application performance. In this post, I’ll provide an introductory overview of WebAssembly — what it is, why it matters, how it works, and how you can start using it today.
What is WebAssembly?
WebAssembly is a low-level bytecode format that runs in the browser. It allows code written in languages like C, C++, and Rust to run on the web at near-native speeds.
Here’s a key thing to understand — WebAssembly is NOT a new programming language. Rather, it’s a compilation target — a way to take code written in other languages and compile it to run efficiently on the web.
For example, you could write some computationally intensive code in C++, compile it to WebAssembly, and run that WASM code in the browser alongside your regular JavaScript.
This allows you to leverage the performance and efficiency of languages like C++ while still using familiar web technologies.
