WebAssembly and Dart with Maksim Lin

In this episode, I talked to Maksim Lin. Maks is a Google Developer Expert in Flutter, and he’s an Android and Flutter Developer. He’s a passionate contributor, user, and supporter of open-source software. He’s also a regular speaker at technical conferences and local developer group meetups.

I invited Maks to chat as I saw a very interesting post written by him about WASM, and Dart. In this episode, we will clarify what WebAssembly is and why it is important for Flutter and Dart developers. WebAssembly is a fascinating topic that will only grow in importance and popularity, so I’m glad I can share this conversation with all of you!

Guest: Maksim Lin

• Twitter @mklin
• GitHub @maks
• Web manichord.com: "Flutter and Android App development and consulting"
• Dart, WASM and AssemblyScript - Oh my!
• Featherweight Isolates in Flutter (Flutter Engage)

Host: Vince Varga

• Twitter @vincevargadev
• GitHub @vincevargadev
• LinkedIn @vincevargadev
• Web vincevarga.dev
• Flutter 101 Podcast on Twitter @flutter101dev

Mentioned packages

• pub.dev/packages/wasm: "Utilities for loading and running WASM modules from Dart code"
• pub.dev/packages/kt_dart: "This project is a port of kotlin-stdlib for Dart/Flutter projects. It includes collections (KtList, KtMap, KtSet) with 150+ methods as well as other useful packages."
• pub.dev/publishers/pascalwelsch.com
• pub.dev/packages/flutter_midi_command: "A Flutter plugin for sending and receiving MIDI messages between Flutter and physical and virtual MIDI devices. Wraps CoreMIDI and android.media.midi in a thin dart/flutter layer."
• pub.dev/packages/libao: "A Dart wrapper for the libao library to output audio using a simple API on a wide variety of platforms."

Other resources

• Dart, WASM and AssemblyScript - Oh my! - "In this article, I want to cover how I have made use of the brand new Dart WASM package to allow me to build the beginnings of a Dart-based audio synthesizer, making use of a rich existing codebase developed in AssemblyScript and which can serve as working example of how to make use of code written in AssemblyScript from Dart."
• WebAssembly - "WebAssembly (abbreviated Wasm) is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Wasm is designed as a portable compilation target for programming languages, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications."
• Peter Salomonsen - WebAssembly Music - "Recently as WebAssembly came along with excellent performance, and AudioWorklet technology in providing low latency audio, it's finally possible to use the web for serious music production."
• github.com/WebAssembly/gc - "Branch of the spec repo scoped to discussion of GC integration in WebAssembly"
• github.com/petersalomonsen/wasm-git - "GIT for nodejs and the browser using libgit2.org compiled to WebAssembly with emscripten.org"
• github.com/dart-lang/sdk/tree/wasm-backend - The Dart SDK branch Maks was talking about (I assume? :))