WebAssembly: A No-Nonsense Guide to Your First WebAssembly App

Developer working on WASM. WebAssembly

WebAssembly (often abbreviated as wasm) is a binary instruction format designed as a portable target for high-level languages like C, C++, and Rust. Simply put, it enables you to run code on web browsers at near-native speed. Intrigued? Let’s build a simple WebAssembly application from scratch!

Prerequisites

• A modern web browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari)
• Text editor (VS Code, Sublime Text)
• Basic knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, and C/C++

Step 1: Setting Up Your Development Environment

Before you dive into code, make sure your development environment is set up.

1. Create a new folder and name it my_first_webassembly_app.
2. Inside this folder, create two empty files: index.html and main.c.

Your folder structure should look like this:

my_first_webassembly_app/
|-- index.html
|-- main.c

Step 2: Write Your C Code

Open main.c in your text editor and add the following C code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  printf("Hello, WebAssembly!\n");
  return 0;
}