As low-level as possible, but no lower
summary
WebAssembly claims a rigorous, fully formalized spec with multiple mechanizations and a reference interpreter; a new spec-DSL now generates the formal rules, readable prose, and an algorithmic IR whose interpreter passes the official test suite (now 100%). The runtime gains—garbage-collection built-ins implemented in major browsers, explicit tail-call and exception primitives, a prototype for delimited continuations/effect handlers in Wasmtime, and a component model that maps to higher-order ML-style modules—exist and are already shipping or prototyped.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:05What is WebAssembly
- 8:12Formal semantics challenges
- 17:29Spec Tech project
- 25:15Low-level abstraction of hardware
- 34:38WebAssembly 3.0 features
- 42:05Continuations and effect handlers
- 47:02Components and module system
- 52:45Summary
- 54:31Q&A
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