We're BACK and talking about Ruby 3.2's Wasm support!
Happy 2023 my fellow Rubyists!
It's been a minute since Fullstack Ruby’s last newsletter. I promised you timely tips on how to meld your Ruby skills with UI-focused app development on the web, and I didn't deliver that. I'm sorry.
But I'm renewing my commitment to providing you with regular and potent content, and kicking things off in the new year is a new podcast episode all about ruby.wasm.
Wasm (aka WebAssembly) provides a standard mechanism for executing sandboxed compiled code within a virtual machine (VM) that benefits both client (aka web browser) and server environments. And with the release of Ruby 3.2 and its Wasm support, you can now "run Ruby" directly in a web browser. No translation layer, no fakery. It's the real deal. Ruby. In the browser. 🤯🙌
But before you dump your entire JavaScript frontend and rush into the warm embrace of Ruby Everywhere™️, caveats abound. I go into some of these issues on the podcast. Think of it this way: you may be writing Ruby 3.2 code, but using it within a "0.1" sort of environment. So there's certainly room for improvement over time, and it remains to be seen just how much improvement there must be before many new production use cases open up.
Nevertheless, I'm bullish on this technology, and I think it's very exciting for fans of Ruby in web development.
So listen to the episode, check out the demo I talk about, and let me know your thoughts!
Cheers,
Jared
P. S. Fullstack Ruby is now on Mastodon! (And no longer active on Twitter. Sorry, no more gems for you, Elmo! 😅)