Introduction to WebAssembly: why should we care?
I'm worried that this will make the JavaScript trap[1] even more of a problem.  The default operation of the web is to allow remote sites to push non-free applications to your browser that it then proceeds to execute.<p>As people have been shifting towards running <i>everything</i> in the browser (just like people like me run everything in Emacs), this effectively results in a revival of ubiquitous proprietary software.<p>I don't think this is desirable.<p>Granted, we already have this problem with plain minified JavaScript, but as we shift more towards treating the web as a platform for which to compile software, this problem is going to become worse.<p>I'd love for the web to be a set of stable application interfaces that in-browser applications can talk to.  Give me the sources and I'll use my package manager to build the JavaScript applications I want my browser to execute for particular online services.  I want more control over the increasingly complex software that we're expected to just execute blindly upon reception.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html</a>