Understanding WebAssembly

WebAssembly is a specification for an instruction set that can be run on a machine. In our case, this machine is virtual. To comprehend how this translates into native speed applications and why the instructions are written the way they are, we need to have a basic understanding of how a program functions inside our computer. To understand WebAssembly, we will look at the following topics:

• Understanding the flow of a basic program
• Setting up our environment to code WebAssembly

Understanding a program

Let's take a look at a very basic C program:

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
   printf("Hello, World!");
   return 0;
}

This program has an entry point. In our case, it is the main...