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torginusyesterday at 6:31 PM2 repliesview on HN

NaCL was further along in every meaningful dimension (the ability to run native software at native speeds) after a year or two of development, than WASM is today after a decade (and I think this will be true a decade from now).

So the upside of WASM according to you, is that it got greenlit by the standards committee chaired by companies whose business model would've been hurt the most by a competent in-browser sandbox.

For example, the Epic-Apple Fortnite battle couldn't even have happened. Epic would've shipped it on NaCL and users would've been just as happy, and Apple (or Google) would've had no way of enforcing their sandox.

Whew, thankfully we've been saved from that terrible fate of getting to publish and enjoy software without gatekeepers and appstores.

At least I hope you have something to gain from your opinion, as the rest of us certainly lost out.


Replies

ttdyesterday at 11:02 PM

It seems like you know quite a bit of the history here. Were you involved in some way? If so, I'm curious to know why you think NaCL did not achieve broad adoption? And what's stopping the world from catching up to your line of thinking and adopting a NaCL successor?

inigyouyesterday at 6:34 PM

Surely PNaCl is the one you need, because portability.

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