The pushback is justified I think - compile from source should be the default always for Rust since it works well (even if slower than desired sometimes).
Pre-compiled is kind of nice for scripting languages since the complexity of native dependencies is usually not wanted by those developers. In Node, I prefer pre-compiled as the default. Here, I do not.
The truth is that JS is currently “good enough” and all the best (adopted) web frameworks are either server or JS based.
I believe the chunking of script files is currently a bit more natural as well.
WebAssembly is the best choice for certain kinds of apps but most web apps are good enough with JS. If communities pour a lot of polish into WASM frameworks you may start to see wider adoption. Diversity is good, but it does need to be asked why WASM + DOM is objectively better than JS + DOM. It complicates the ecosystem a bit because you might fracture it for no good reason. Should there be Rust, Python, and JS DOM rendering frameworks? Is there a benefit?
If you have a more traditionally native app you want to port, that’s different. That’s a great fit for WASM. Personally I see it becoming more popular when it’s a good replacement for desktop technology and the DOM isn’t used at all (go straight to GPU). I’m a huge fan of WASM, but I also write a lot of web apps and don’t see a super convincing reason to adopt WASM to effectively make the exact same thing. As-is, it’s great for augmenting an app though.
Wait for garbage collection and sockets and you might see the paradigm start to shift.
I don’t think they did?