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

justinjunodev
:rotating_light: Silly Post Alert :rotating_light: With the Coronavirus keeping the majority of us developers quarantined, how many “new...
New
andresriveros
I’m very interested in the Stimulus reflex approach for frontend development: It is a great way to integrate action cable very easily ...
New
michael
So I have a table of MediaItems and when that list changes, say new entries, I’d like LiveView to know about that so that the Timeline up...
New
DevotionGeo
Dart is not the first language with that mistake, but it’s newer. It shouldn’t have repeated this mistake.
New
First poster: bot
hlang in 30 Seconds hlang (the h language) is a revolutionary new use of WebAssembly that enables single-paridigm programming without any...
New
XSukhpreet
My Favorite tool is figma, It helps a lot in designing .
New
EngineerHamziey
Hello everyone, is there a website or app that I can use to improve my self Like where there are UI UX designs to practice with and then...
New
harwind
Why does the image in my <img> tag appear larger than its specified width within a flex container? Here’s my HTML and CSS code: HT...
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
guaip
I’ve been doing front-end as a freelancer for 15 years. I have some PHP background and still do some backend stuff to this day, but I spe...
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
ohm
Which, if any, games do you play? On what platform? I just bought (and completed) Minecraft Dungeons for my Nintendo Switch. Other than ...
New
axelson
I’ve been really enjoying obsidian.md: It is very snappy (even though it is based on Electron). I love that it is all local by defaul...
New
AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
New
AstonJ
Inspired by this post from @Carter, which languages, frameworks or other tech or tools do you think is killing it right now? :upside_down...
New
AstonJ
Do the test and post your score :nerd_face: :keyboard: If possible, please add info such as the keyboard you’re using, the layout (Qw...
New
AstonJ
If you get Can't find emacs in your PATH when trying to install Doom Emacs on your Mac you… just… need to install Emacs first! :lol: bre...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight Rebecca Skinner @RebeccaSkinner Welcome to our latest author spotlight, where we sit down with Rebecca Skinner, auth...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Programming Ruby is the most complete book on Ruby, covering both the language itself and the standard library as well as commonly used t...
New
New