On: CPython's main branch running in the browser with WebAssembly

[trothamel]

Although it's only Python 2.7, cpython-based games have been running in the web browser for years.

https://beuc.itch.io/the-question-web

(I'm the lead developer of Ren'Py, though Sylvain Beucler did most of the work. He also has a 3.8 port here: https://www.beuc.net/python-emscripten/python/dir?ci=tip )

[dmw_ng → trothamel]

The PyPy team demoed a networked multiplayer browser-compiled Python game at EuroPython in 2006. Anyone remember the details? Seems it has dropped off the face of google.

[azakai → dmw_ng]

I don't remember that game specifically, but I assume it used PyPy.js,

https://github.com/pypyjs/pypyjs

[doublepg23 → trothamel]

Ren'Py is a joy to use and an excellent project.

[trothamel → doublepg23]

Thank you.

[pwang → trothamel]

The homepage that's linked from Github seems to be down? https://renpy.beuc.net/

[ethanhsmith → trothamel]

Yep! I definitely want to build on and learn from existing patched versions of Python running in the web. Do you know what you folks do for synchronous I/O calls?

[trothamel → ethanhsmith]

Of course. It will be nice to have the upcoming Python 3 version of Ren'Py based on the main branch, so we don't have to maintain patches.

Right now, most of the I/O is synchronous - the files are downloaded to the browser before a game starts, so all of the calls are fast, so far as I can tell, as they're happening within the browser.

Output is through SDL, and there's a call into a cython-defined function that calls __emscripten_sleep, with the path of calls to it listed in the ASYNCIFY_WHITELIST. That's the only place we block. (It's a bit late, so I might be misremembering the exact emscripten function.)