
Python Ported to WebAssembly - syrusakbary
https://twitter.com/wasmerio/status/1146477876151115776
======
mkl
Previous discussion of Pyodide:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19677721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19677721)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684321](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19684321)

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snek
My experience with the wasmer entity has been and continues to be that it is
just copying/repackaging stuff other people do to get VC money.

Something of this sort was done a long time ago with pypy[1] and more recently
CPython[2]

1: [https://pypyjs.org/](https://pypyjs.org/) 2:
[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/04/pyodide-bringing-the-
scien...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/04/pyodide-bringing-the-scientific-
python-stack-to-the-browser/)

~~~
syrusakbary
We’ve been in contact with people from Mozilla regarding Pyodide, so our
intention is not really repackaging but being able to use Python server side
via WebAssembly (eventually we want to get rid of our package and use Pyodide
directly).

We don’t want to steal other people attention but to bring more people into
the WebAssembly ecosystem, and you can only do that by helping bringing more
packages to it.

If you are aware of other ways of running Python server side with WebAssembly
I’d love to know more!

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KenoFischer
Not sure what the "Show HN" part of this is, but here's a link to the original
announcement post for Python-on-WASM by Mike Droettboom and the team at
mozilla: [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/04/pyodide-bringing-the-
scien...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/04/pyodide-bringing-the-scientific-
python-stack-to-the-browser/). This seems to just be repackaging that.

~~~
mkl
syrusakbary is the CEO of Wasmer.

~~~
KenoFischer
Sure, but to what extent are they "showing" us that they "Ported Python to
WebAssembly". Isn't this more of a "Show HN: Python packaged for Wasmer"? To
my mind, part of the purpose of these show HN threads is to ask questions and
give feedback about whatever it is that the post is showing, so I'm asking to
what extent the Wasmer folks actually did any "porting", since (to me) that
seems like the interesting part.

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stcredzero
We should just up and have an "OS" on WebAssembly. It could be based on
packages from something like NixOS. There could even be a local server with
cached packages

~~~
the_pwner224
You mean we should replace Windows/macOS/Linux and package managers with a web
browser? Cool.

~~~
oconnor663
My understanding is that the wasm runtime is substantially independent from
the browser, like NodeJS but maybe moreso?

~~~
the_pwner224
I suppose you are correct. But AFAIK at the moment it's not really used
anywhere except in browsers. If you need to run it locally, why not just use
normal Python?

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syrusakbary
Hi HN,

I’m Syrus, CEO of Wasmer. I started the company with the goal of running
WebAssembly server side (same concept on what Node.js did with js).

We believe WebAssembly will be very relevant in the future and we are betting
big on it.

Please check more about our project here:
[https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer](https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer)

~~~
rambojazz
How do you believe to make money with this technology instead? Other than
maybe make it proprietary.

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flaque
Super excited to see this used in scientific computing; python notebooks will
get quite a big upgrade.

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MuffinFlavored
So... Python now runs in the WebBrowser, kind of?

just... every website that wants to serve you Python-generate content now
needs to ship the entire Python runtime as a WASM dependency? :P

~~~
Finnucane
Just think, we’ll be able to send whole applications over the Internet that
will be able to run without being connected. That will be totally game
changing.

~~~
singularity2001
Smart browsers would cache the 10MB python.wasm file across applications.

But so far each refresh results in a new download.

