Node Interactive North America 2017

WebAssembly has generated a significant amount of buzz since being first introduced and subsequently reaching cross-browser consensus. Several in the Node community have talked about WebAssembly allowing Node.js to fulfill the promise of the JVM, providing an efficient compile-to target with a single runtime. While WebAssembly is a significant development and will certainly affect how Node.js developers build their applications, some clarity is needed in helping developers better understand the implications WebAssembly will have on application development. To this end, this talk will inform developers as to what WebAssembly is and is not, help them understand why they should even care about WebAssembly in the first place, and enable them to make informed decisions when choosing whether to implement functionality in WebAssembly or as a Node.js add-on.