WebAssembly 2.0 begins to take shape

W3C publishes working drafts for Wasm core, JavaScript interface, and Web API details.

The first public working drafts of WebAssembly 2.0 have arrived, with the planned next iteration of the binary instruction format so far centering on capabilities such as JavaScript interaction and integration with the broader web platform.

The WebAssembly Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on April 19 published three drafts:

• WebAssembly Core Specification Version 2.0, describing the next version of the core standard.
• WebAssembly JavaScript Interface Version 2.0, providing an explicit JavaScript API for interacting with WebAssembly.
• WebAssembly Web API Verson 2.0, describing the integration of WebAssembly with the broader web platform.

[ Also on InfoWorld: The rise of WebAssembly ]

The three drafts follow the same pattern as for WebAssembly 1.0, with the W3C in late-2019 publishing documents pertaining to the core specification, a web API, and a JavaScript interface. The core specification of WebAssembly 2.0 echoes previous goals for WebAssembly. Design goals include fast, safe, and portable semantics and efficient and portable representation.

The JavaScript API provides a way to access WebAssembly through a bridge to explicitly construct modules from JavaScript. The Web API builds on the WebAssembly specification and WebAssembly JavaScript Embedding.

Supported in major browsers, WebAssembly, or Wasm for short, provides a safe, portable, low-level code format designed for compact representation and efficient execution. It promises faster web applications and enabling use of other languages besides JavaScript for web programming. The technology is now powering complex distributed applications, having moved beyond the browser and into the server.

Publishing of a working draft does not imply endorsement by W3C or members. The draft document may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents.