There are two types of programming languages: garbage-collected programming languages and programming languages that require manual memory management. This article explains how thanks to WebAssembly Garbage Collection, short WasmGC, garbage-collected languages can be ported to WebAssembly.
JetBrains, the leading provider of professional software development tools, has released the stable version of Kotlin Multiplatform, a technology for sharing code among iOS, Android, desktop, web, server-side, and other platforms. It is already used by development teams at major companies, including Netflix, VMware, Cash App, McDonald’s, Electrolux, and Phillips.
Last week, a preview release of Kotlin/Wasm was announced as part of Kotlin 1.8.20-Beta. For me who has been nudging the Kotlin team to work on WebAssembly support since June 2016, that’s a huge step forward even if providing WebAssembly first class support for Kotlin will be a long journey.
I also decided recently to contribute actively by creating KoWasm, an experimental side project intended to provide WebAssembly Component Model and WASI support for Kotlin/Wasm, with the goal to see those features later supported out of the box.