upvote

points

by kentonv5 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby valorzard3 hours ago|
next
[-]
dumb question: is this javascript/typescript only? can you use webassembly based languages instead?
reply
upvoteby kentonv3 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
In theory Wasm could be supported, but generally JS/TS is much more efficient when running inside isolates (our lightweight sandboxes) since you don't have to bundle a language runtime into the app. CFOS at present only exposes JS (with TS coming soon).
reply
upvoteby spankalee3 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
Please add Wasm support :)

I'm making a whole new language to get around the problem you're talking about: it brings no runtime at all. One of my targets is a Sandstorm like system I've been slowly working on, but I'd love for it to be a fit for the actual Sandstorm successor.

reply
upvoteby echelon5 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
This is far too Cloudflare flavored to be interesting to me.

It's using Workers (capital W) and the core Cloudflare primitives.

I don't feel safe building on this or touching this.

I'd be happier if a startup or neutral party built this in a more agnostic way.

reply
upvoteby kentonv5 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
I'm sorry but Workers is the technology that makes this all possible. I don't think I could have built this without Workers as a foundation. (I tried once, with Sandstorm, and like I said, it didn't work well.)

Sometimes you just can't advance the state of the art while also maintaining broad compatibility.

It's all open source, though. You can run the whole stack on your own machine.

reply
upvoteby ocdtrekkie5 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
For what it's worth, we also ran workerd inside a Sandstorm grain and not only did it work, it performed well. In the same way some people run Docker to run a single thing inside a VM solely for that thing... you can probably use workerd just to run a single Workers-based thing inside something else... and it'll probably work just swell.
reply
upvoteby echelon4 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Workers is a product and you're paid to develop and sell it as an employee.

I 100% understand the hustle. I do the same thing. I just don't trust a giant like Cloudflare that has done several things to weaken the open web and establish a position that is all too powerful. I don't want to give them an iota of support. Even using open source buys into their mindshare, distribution, ecosystem, and eventual supremacy and lock-in.

I'd buy this from a smaller company for sure. Just not from Google, AWS, Cloudflare.

If this was a YC startup I'd have given you my credit card info already.

I don't know what your stock in Cloudflare is like, but your upside would be way bigger building this externally. You'd probably raise an extremely large seed round.

Consider launching your own startup. Don't give Cloudflare all the upside.

Edit: I didn't realize you'd already responded. Was clarifying my position and wishes for this to not be something made by Cloudflare.

reply
upvoteby kentonv4 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
I tried it as a startup once, so I know what that's like. It's a lot of time spent running around begging for money (from investors and from customers) rather than building technology.

Workers is my startup-within-Cloudflare. It won't make me a billionaire, but it has still made me more money than I actually know what to do with, while being able to delegate all the stuff I don't like doing to other parts of the company that already do it quite well.

I have a lot of influence here. The CEO and CTO listen to me. E.g. I made my argument this all needed to be open source and self hostable, and they agreed enthusiastically.

I don't think I could build this better as a separate company.

reply
upvoteby echelon4 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
I appreciate your extremely thoughtful answers. It greatly improves my perception and attitude about this.

I'll check it out.

I'm still anxious about the Cloudflare angle (and that's hard to shake), but beggars can't be choosers. You've legitimately built something cool and done a fantastic job spearheading that.

Thank you for the kind and well stated response. Sounds like you've had a lot of fun building this too.

reply
upvoteby 4 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
deleted
reply
upvoteby sroerick4 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
My approach has been an interpreted Lisp running on a web server backend and it basically does everything described here
reply