An interpreter is significantly easier to sandbox than native execution, and it means they can make guarantees the host system won't crash no matter what the program running is.
I could see it being useful for allowing third parties to run experiments on their hardware in space without having to manually verify the code safety.
Portability: It means you can change your hardware target and you only have to worry about re-certifying this, instead of an entire compiler.
Testing: You can probably run your WASM code fully deterministically in a deterministic simulation much easier than native code. Also when developing you don't need the actual hardware.
Isolation / compartmentalisation. If I were them I would be strongly considering using the WASM component model (in future).
It would be good if they put their actual motivation in the readme though.
4 Comments
Colloidal@programming.dev · 7 pts · 63d
Fucking WHY? You need wasm when you don't know your hardware target. Why would you not know your target in a space mission?
xthexder@l.sw0.com · 6 pts · 63d
An interpreter is significantly easier to sandbox than native execution, and it means they can make guarantees the host system won't crash no matter what the program running is.
I could see it being useful for allowing third parties to run experiments on their hardware in space without having to manually verify the code safety.
Colloidal@programming.dev · 1 pts · 61d
That's a pretty good rationale, actually.
FizzyOrange@programming.dev · 3 pts · 62d
I can think of a few potential advantages:
Portability: It means you can change your hardware target and you only have to worry about re-certifying this, instead of an entire compiler.
Testing: You can probably run your WASM code fully deterministically in a deterministic simulation much easier than native code. Also when developing you don't need the actual hardware.
Isolation / compartmentalisation. If I were them I would be strongly considering using the WASM component model (in future).
It would be good if they put their actual motivation in the readme though.