While still new to most people, WebAssembly provides a formidable vision of safe, fast, portable code. Through clever choices and well-considered design, the basic vision allows us to target browsers as a platform using a variety of languages other than (but compatible with) Javascript. This technology coupled with advancements in the Web platform are setting up the future of Web-delivered applications to look more like (and likely to replace) desktop applications. The more interesting possibilities, however, will be realized when WebAssembly escapes the browser and ushers in a whole new era of ubiquitous, secure computing. We will discuss the various container environments and how they will solve some of the more persistent issues with more conventional software development technologies.
Brian Sletten is a liberal arts-educated software engineer with a focus on forward-leaning technologies. His experience has spanned many industries including retail, banking, online games, defense, finance, hospitality and health care. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary and lives in Auburn, CA. He focuses on web architecture, resource-oriented computing, social networking, the Semantic Web, data science, 3D graphics, visualization, scalable systems, security consulting and other technologies of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. He is currently writing "WebAssembly : The Definitive Guide" for O'Reilly Media.
