WebAssembly (Wasm)
WebAssembly is used in Polkadot and Substrate as the compilation target for the runtime.
What is WebAssembly?
WebAssembly, shortened to simply Wasm, is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Wasm is designed as a portable target for compilation of high-level languages like C/C++/Rust, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications.
Why WebAssembly?
WebAssembly is a platform agnostic binary format, meaning that it will run the same instructions across whatever machine it is operating on. Blockchains need determinancy in order to have reliable state transition updates across all nodes in the peer-to-peer network without forcing every peer to run the same exact hardware. Wasm is a nice fit for reliability among the possibly diverse set of machines. Wasm is both efficient and fast. The efficiency means that it can be uploaded onto the chain as a blob of code without causing too much state bloat while keeping its ability to execute at near-native speeds.
Resources
- WebAssembly.org - WebAssembly homepage that contains a link to the spec.
- Wasmi - WebAssembly interpreter written in Rust.
- Parity Wasm - WebAssembly serialization/deserialization in Rust.
- Wasm utils - Collection of Wasm utilities used in Parity and Wasm contract development.