In April of 2015, Luke Wagner made the first commits to a new repository called WebAssembly/design, adding a high-level design document for a “binary format to serve as a web compilation target.”

Function inlining is one of the most important compiler optimizations, not because of its direct effects, but because of the follow-up optimizations it unlocks. It may reveal, for example, that an otherwise-unknown function parameter value is bound to a constant argument, which makes a conditional branch unconditional, which in turn exposes that the function will always return the same value. Inlining is the catalyst of modern compiler optimization.

This is a blog post outlining the odyssey I recently took to implement the Wasm exception-handling proposal in Wasmtime, the open-source WebAssembly engine for which I’m a core team member/maintainer, and its Cranelift compiler backend.

Wasmtime is a fast, secure, standards compliant and lightweight WebAssembly (Wasm) runtime. As of Wasmtime 35, Winch supports AArch64 for Core Wasm proposals, along with additional Wasm proposals like the Component Model and Custom Page Sizes.

Wasmtime’s 33.0.0 release supports invoking Wasm component exports directly from the command line with the new --invoke flag. This article walks through building a Wasm component in Rust and using wasmtime run --invoke to execute specific functions (enabling powerful workflows for scripting, testing, and integrating Wasm into modern development pipelines).

The Bytecode Alliance is very happy to announce a significant milestone for both Wasmtime and the Bytecode Alliance: Wasmtime has officially been promoted to become the BA’s first Core Project. As someone deeply involved in Wasmtime and the proposal process, I’m incredibly excited to share this news and what it signifies.

Wasmtime is a lightweight WebAssembly runtime built for speed, security, and standards-compliance. Wasmtime now supports long-term-support (LTS) releases that are maintained with security fixes for 2 years after their initial release.

In 2024, the WAMR community saw many thrilling advancements, including the development of new features, increased industrial use, and an improved experience for developers. Passionate developers and industry professionals have come together to enhance and expand WAMR in ways we couldn’t have imagined. From exciting new tools to a growing community, there’s a lot to be proud of. Let’s take a closer look at the key highlights of WAMR 2024, showcasing the community’s efforts, new features, and the establishment of the Embedded Special Interest Group (ESIG).

Each December the Bytecode Alliance conducts elections to fill important roles on our governing Board and Technical Steering Committee (TSC). I’m pleased to announce the results of our just-held December 2024 election, in which our Recognized Contributors (RCs) selected three Elected Delegates to the TSC and one At-Large Director to represent them on the Alliance Board.

Wasmtime is a lightweight WebAssembly runtime built for speed, security, and standards-compliance. December’s v28.0 release brings enhancements including a new option for optimization at compile-time, a new first-class type for Cranelift’s domain-specific language (DSL), and more.