AssemblyScript is a great idea, and has some excellent people working on it. I posted about this earlier, and Aaron Turner replied. His "wasmboy" Gameboy emulator is a perfect example of just what AssemblyScript is good for, and he gave an interesting talk about it too.
>AssemblyScript compiles strictly typed TypeScript (basically JavaScript with types) to WebAssembly using Binaryen. It generates lean and mean WebAssembly modules while being just an npm install away.
Since you can compile AssemblyScript into JavaScript with the TypeScript compiler as well as into WebAssembly, you can compare the speed of JavaScript -vs- WebAssembly on the same source code. Aaron did some interesting benchmarks using wasmboy, in the great tradition of using GameBoy emulators to benchmark JavaScript engines:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20079367
DonHopkins on June 3, 2019 | parent | favorite | on: Compiling C to WebAssembly Without Emscripten
Anybody used or have opinions about AssemblyScript? https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript
>AssemblyScript compiles strictly typed TypeScript (basically JavaScript with types) to WebAssembly using Binaryen. It generates lean and mean WebAssembly modules while being just an npm install away.
https://dev.to/jtenner/an-assemblyscript-primer-for-typescri...
Here's a great example of a project that uses it:
https://github.com/torch2424/wasmboy
>Gameboy Emulator Library written in Web Assembly using AssemblyScript, Debugger/Shell in Preact
Here's an excellent talk about wasmboy by the author, Aaron Turner -- he's done some really outstanding work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlL1nduatZQ
Since you can compile AssemblyScript into JavaScript with the TypeScript compiler as well as into WebAssembly, you can compare the speed of JavaScript -vs- WebAssembly on the same source code. Aaron did some interesting benchmarks using wasmboy, in the great tradition of using GameBoy emulators to benchmark JavaScript engines:
https://medium.com/@torch2424/webassembly-is-fast-a-real-wor...
Aaron Turner posted this useful link to a good AssemblyScript example a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=torch2424
torch2424 7 months ago | unvote | parent [-] | on: Walt: JavaScript-like syntax for WebAssembly
I help out every once and a while on the AssemblyScript team with like issues, docs, and things. And made wasmboy, which uses AssemblyScript:
https://github.com/torch2424/wasmBoy
But that being said, usually when people are interested in the language, we usually direct them to the "n-body" example: https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript/blob/master... . Which kind of looks more typescript-y :)
Also, just to stay on topic, I think walt is awesome. Stoked to see so many projects coming up with a "Wasm for JS devs" approach/story.
torch2424 on June 3, 2019 [–]
Hello!
Aaron Turner here, thank you for all the kind words! :) Yes I did all those things, and stoked to see people excited about it!
Definitely feel free to reach out anytime about AssemblyScript or WasmBoy. Would love to chat with you / anyone interested.
We also have a slack channel you can reach out and get invited to (see the wiki sidebar): https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript/wiki
Thanks again!