AstonJ

AstonJ

Swift vs Rust for WASM/WebAssembly

Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on choosing between these two languages for WebAssembly?

I definitely want to explore wasm, and really love the idea of learning both of these, however, I can only squeeze one in right now.

Anyone have any thoughts? Which might be the easier route? Which will be more useful/fully featured/supported? etc.

Here are some pros and cons (from a personal perspective so far):

Rust

  • Can also be used with Elixir/Erlang nifs
  • Can also be used in other areas such as general web dev
  • Huge community support

Swift

  • Can be used for iOS/macOS apps
  • While can be used for other areas (such as web dev too - I get the feeling not quite as well as Rust)
  • Huge Apple support

Most Liked

SmithyTT

SmithyTT

Rust.

Swift for WebAssembly is not quite there yet…

herbert

herbert

Author of Hands-on Rust

I don’t have a lot of experience with Swift, so I can’t really comment on it. Rust works very well with web assembly (some assembly required, heh). One of the reasons I picked up Rust was that it made it easy to write tutorials and include a web-runnable version (my Roguelike Tutorial series has each example as a playable web game - e.g. https://bfnightly.bracketproductions.com/rustbook/wasm/chapter-74-darkcity/ ).

There are downsides. If you link with C libraries, chances are you have to come up with some shims to handle the bits of the C library that don’t exist in WASM-land. Also WebGL is almost but not quite compatible with regular GL - so for graphics you’ll have to tweak things a bit.

herbert

herbert

Author of Hands-on Rust

I may have messed up the link, sorry! http://bfnightly.bracketproductions.com/rustbook/ should work.

Rust is a systems language, so its harder than Python and other very high-level languages. It tries really hard to not surprise you, and once you have the basics down it’s a relatively smooth learning curve. Some things - like threads - are much easier than other languages. Other things like the borrow checker will cause a bit of head-scratching at first.

Where Next?

Popular Frontend topics Top

New
New
mrmurphy
The situation Hi there! I’m working on a live view app right now that encrypts sensitive user content (text and images) using the browser...
New
mafinar
Just like I did one on Tailwind some time ago, I am going to play with AlpineJS the next few days. It’s a nice little JS framework that ...
New
First poster: bot
A 3D racing game built with ClojureScript, React and ThreeJS
New
Ayushk
Hello, This is pretty basic. I was trying to explore the front-end development as I was not from a tech background. But, very much inter...
New
KnowledgeIsPower
It seems it is going to change, currently they forked Next.JS. Now they want to stop forking it and change their project direction.
New
AstonJ
Was just curious to see if any were around, found this one: I got 51/100: Not sure if it was meant to buy I am sure at times the b...
New
DevynClark
Front-end Developer Griffin, USA As a student in college looking for a way to break into Front-end Web Development, the rise of things s...
New
NKTgLaw
Introduction The NKTg Law on Varying Inertia describes the tendency of an object in motion depending on its position, velocity, and mass...
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
Hello Devtalk World! Please let us know a little about who you are and where you’re from :nerd_face:
New
Devtalk
Reading something? Working on something? Planning something? Changing jobs even!? If you’re up for sharing, please let us know what you’...
1037 19435 386
New
AstonJ
This looks like a stunning keycap set :orange_heart: A LEGENDARY KEYBOARD LIVES ON When you bought an Apple Macintosh computer in the e...
New
AstonJ
If you are experiencing Rails console using 100% CPU on your dev machine, then updating your development and test gems might fix the issu...
New
foxtrottwist
A few weeks ago I started using Warp a terminal written in rust. Though in it’s current state of development there are a few caveats (tab...
New
Help
I am trying to crate a game for the Nintendo switch, I wanted to use Java as I am comfortable with that programming language. Can you use...
New
AstonJ
If you want a quick and easy way to block any website on your Mac using Little Snitch simply… File > New Rule: And select Deny, O...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Peter Ullrich @PJUllrich Data is at the core of every business, but it is useless if nobody can access and analyze ...
New
First poster: bot
zig/http.zig at 7cf2cbb33ef34c1d211135f56d30fe23b6cacd42 · ziglang/zig. General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaini...
New
AnfaengerAlex
Hello, I’m a beginner in Android development and I’m facing an issue with my project setup. In my build.gradle.kts file, I have the foll...
New