80 points by scribedevteam 6 months ago flag hide 30 comments
gnomish_coder 6 months ago next
Great job! WebAssembly is indeed the future of web development. I wonder how this extension compares to others in terms of performance. Any benchmarks available?
gnu_beer 6 months ago next
I second gnomish_coder's request for benchmarks. I believe the authors ran some tests but I haven't seen them in the repo.
gnomish_coder 6 months ago next
@gnu_beer, that's correct, they mentioned some performance tests in the announcements — I'm not sure why they haven't shared the results yet. Guess, we can ask them...
hyp3r_linux_grrl 6 months ago prev next
Did you think about implementing Scribe as a Firefox extension too? Chrome has a big share of the browser market, but Firefox has its own loyal users.
wizard42 6 months ago next
@hyp3r_ linux_grrl I think they did start working on a Firefox version. I remember someone posting a thread about that in the discuss section the other day.
surfncode 6 months ago prev next
I've tested Scribe with a few websites and it works really well! I would like to contribute to the project. Do you accept pull requests?
open_geek 6 months ago next
Of course! We are heavily focused on making Scribe even better and more feature-rich. Be sure to submit your code through a pull request.
surfncode 6 months ago next
@open_geek Sounds good! I'll get started-any areas in particular that you'd like to see improvements in?
krippled_coder 6 months ago prev next
How consistent is the performance increase? I'm curious if the gap between native and WebAssembly becomes smaller as the site's JS complexity increases.
amoebatech 6 months ago next
WebAssembly is getting better all the time and I think it's a great way to extend browsers. Kudos to the Scribe team for leveraging the technology!
grumpy_admin 6 months ago prev next
The demo video was very promising but I'm having trouble implementing Scribe in my own workflow, can you explain the installation process again or point me to a more detailed guide?
winged_cat 6 months ago next
Grumpy admin, I recently wrote a blog post on using Scribe - Happy to share if you'd like to give it a try. Here's the link: [www.blogpost.com/how-to-implement-scribe](http://www.blogpost.com/how-to-implement-scribe)
sharkitect 6 months ago prev next
Chrome's extension security model may have implications for Scribe long-term. Has anyone considered whether WebExtensions might be a better solution?
technomancer 6 months ago next
That's a valid concern. WebExtensions might indeed be better suited for an extension like Scribe as it focuses on interoperability between multiple browsers.
wizard42 6 months ago next
WebExtensions offer benefits like clear authoring guidelines and a shared APIs making it easier to create cross-browser compatible extensions. A good read IMHO.
drunk_dev 6 months ago prev next
I think having such a powerful extension is great but I wonder how much of a performance diference it really makes on average. Does the team have any usage data available?
gnu_beer 6 months ago next
Indeed, data on the saving of parse and manipulation times would be interesting. I'd also love to hear plans for the future development of Scribe.
ha5ked 6 months ago prev next
This really pushes forward the use of WebAssembly. Do you see any limitations for such a tool at this stage? Could it replace some existing tools?
machinepreneur 6 months ago next
One limitation for such tools is the fragmentation of web technologies. Browsers deal with this differently. Older browsers will face challenges running this smoothly.
ha5ked 6 months ago next
Very true. Developing workarounds for non-WebAssembly compatible browsers might pose a challenge in the long term.
live2code 6 months ago prev next
Since WebAssembly is designed for high-performance, could you add more functionalities that are GPU-intensive? Real-time manipulation of rich-content?
randomdevgirl 6 months ago prev next
I can't wait to start using Scribe! Would you open-source the parser logic and offer part of the code as a npm package so that I can integrate it into my projects easily?
gnu_beer 6 months ago next
@randomdevgirl, I was also wondering if there are plans to create a library for direct integration with popular frameworks. That would be so useful!
open_geek 6 months ago next
@gnu_beer
open_geek 6 months ago next
Hi @gnu_beer and @randomdevgirl, we plan to support projects like Parcel and Webpack in our next release. Additionally, an npm package is under consideration, stay tuned! :)
gnu_beer 6 months ago prev next
That's great news, @open_geek! And I'm looking forward to the npm package.
amateuralg 6 months ago prev next
I'd like to know if this extension has a roadmap for supporting additional programming languages in the near future? Or is WebAssembly all that's required?
amateuralg 6 months ago next
That's reasurring, thanks for the explanation.
das_dev 6 months ago prev next
As far as I know, WebAssembly is designed for more general-purpose computing than just serving as an array of bytes. So, theoretically Scribe can be expanded to more languages.
wizard42 6 months ago next
WebAssembly is designed for compactness, speed, and scalability. So it could be a good solution as long as WeAssembly evolves as per the requirements.