Stefan Schöberl

WebAssembly: Disassembled

How does WebAssembly actually work? Go beyond compilers and see its stack machine and raw text format in action, live-coded from scratch.

WebAssembly: Disassembled
#1about 2 minutes

What WebAssembly is and its role on the web

WebAssembly is a W3C standard that complements JavaScript for performance-heavy tasks while running in the same security sandbox.

#2about 3 minutes

The architecture of a WebAssembly module

A WebAssembly module interacts with an external environment like JavaScript through imports and exports for functions, memory, and global variables.

#3about 1 minute

Binary (.wasm) versus textual (.wat) representation

WebAssembly modules have an interchangeable binary format (.wasm) for execution and a human-readable textual format (.wat) for debugging.

#4about 4 minutes

How the WebAssembly stack machine execution model works

WebAssembly uses a stack machine for execution, where instructions manipulate values on a stack to perform computations.

#5about 5 minutes

Live coding a recursive Fibonacci function in .wat

A live coding demonstration shows how to implement the recursive Fibonacci algorithm using WebAssembly's textual format (.wat).

#6about 4 minutes

How to implement loops using block and loop statements

WebAssembly constructs loops using structured block and loop statements with indexed labels for branching, which replace traditional goto statements.

#7about 5 minutes

Live coding how to find the maximum value in an array

This live coding example demonstrates how to iterate through an array in memory to find its maximum value using WebAssembly bytecode.

#8about 2 minutes

Q&A on modules, security, and language recommendations

The speaker answers audience questions about connecting multiple modules, using WebAssembly for secure software supply chains, and the best languages to start with.

Related jobs
Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.

Featured Partners

From learning to earning

Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.

Rust and GoLang

Rust and GoLang

NHe4a GmbH
Karlsruhe, Germany

Remote
55-65K
Intermediate
Senior
Go
Rust