Containers Are Dead: Long Live WebAssembly
About
Your backend services are functioning, but they're not performing optimally. Docker containers feel heavy, cold starts are slow, and your cloud bill keeps climbing. Security concerns keep you up at night, all while you're fighting the spaghetti-stack to deliver features on a tight deadline. You've heard WebAssembly is the future, but it seems confined to browsers - can it solve your server-side problems?
Yes, it can! WebAssembly is starting to power anything from safety-critical embedded applications to large-scale web services. Employed correctly, it gives you microsecond cold boot times, reliable sandboxing, safe user extensibility, and much more.
Description
In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to build such an efficient, portable, and secure server-side application using Rust and WebAssembly. We'll cover everything from foundational concepts to cutting-edge features. By the end, you'll have built a microservice in Rust, compiled it to WebAssembly, and deployed it using cutting-edge tooling. You'll understand when this approach outshines containers, where the technology is headed, and how to incorporate these techniques into your existing infrastructure.
Prerequisites
We assume you are familiar with Rust and have heard of WebAssembly, but we don't assume deep knowledge. We will provide a brief explanation and references whenever we rely on advanced features.
Mentor
Jonas Kruckenberg
Jonas is an engineer at Mainmatter and creator of the k23 operating system. He has helped people to build fast, secure, cross-platform desktop apps through his work on Tauri and is deeply involved in open-source, local-first, and humane software.
Outside of code, he sings in classical ensembles and enjoys hiking.
