Mirror of forum.nim-lang.org

13363 :: JS Backend Support For Nimony

• Niminem (orginal) [2025-08-28T02:54:11+02:00] view original

  Now that we are getting closer and closer to the finish line for Nimony, I'd like to start a thread here for the js backend.

  We need it (IMO). It's one of the features that drew me in about Nim ;)

  I personally don't have the time to help, but I do have some coin and I'm happy to support commercially.

  Curious to hear everyone else's thoughts about having js integrated and maybe discuss assembling a task force for this lol?

---

• Araq (orginal) [2025-08-28T08:45:17+02:00] view original

  I sent you an email.

---

• ASVI (orginal) [2025-09-02T17:10:13+02:00] view original

  I completely agree, javascript frontend is really important thing and I hope that nimony will have it. But besides it, I would like to have wasm backend as a separate backend and as used inside js backend:

  
  proc jsProc
  proc wasmProc {.wasm.}
  proc myCoolAlgorithm*() {.wasm.} =
    jsProc()
    wasmProc()
  Run

  This will speed up some algorithms. In addition, you can add

  
  import foo {.wasm.}
  Run

  Because annotating each procedure in the foo module can be annoying. By the way, the wasm backend is useful in itself, for example, a situation may arise when you need to run someone else's (not always safe) code in a sandbox. And wasm copes with this and at the same time works quite fast with its jit

---

• nimaoth (orginal) [2025-09-02T17:45:22+02:00] view original

  I would also really like a builtin wasm backend. I started working on one a while ago, but haven't continued in the last few weeks, and it's very bare bones still. I might continue on that later this year, or maybe it can be used as a starting point for someone else ^^

---

• elcritch (orginal) [2025-09-02T18:22:33+02:00] view original

  That'd be next level. Nimony would be perfect for JS/WASM web apps. @nimaoth awesome, the hardest piece would probably be the re-looper algorithm. Though probably not too bad with NIF blocks.

---

• Araq (orginal) [2025-09-02T23:41:33+02:00] view original

  I started working on one a while ago ...

  This is awesome!

---

• stisa (orginal) [2025-09-08T21:07:29+02:00] view original

  nice! I gave it a try some years ago (nwasm) but didn't have the time to get it past a proof of concept. I'd love to see this happen!

---

• Gschnuuferi (orginal) [2025-09-09T20:52:34+02:00] view original

  That is what I thought too. Actually, kind of took it for granted that it would come after the main idiomatic design choices for Nim 3.0 are ironed out. Nim→JS is quite popular indeed. There was another discussion where the topic was touched on: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/8727

  I was of the impression from Araq's reply that this wasn't something that Nimony would do, at least to start with, but a separate pipeline that wouldn't need to depend on Nimony.

  Not something I would be particularly worried about either way. However, if Nimony with NIF, NIFC, and LLVM target subsequently, were to unleash Futhark-ish capabilities for wrapping C++, that's a bigger win.

---

• Araq (orginal) [2025-09-09T21:34:20+02:00] view original

  I was of the impression from Araq's reply that this wasn't something that Nimony would do, at least to start with, but a separate pipeline that wouldn't need to depend on Nimony.

  No, most of the pipeline would be and will be re-used.

---