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  5. Hack vs WebAssembly

Hack vs WebAssembly

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Hack
Hack
Stacks818
Followers169
Votes29
GitHub Stars18.5K
Forks3.1K
WebAssembly
WebAssembly
Stacks223
Followers218
Votes0
GitHub Stars8.2K
Forks818

Hack vs WebAssembly: What are the differences?

Introduction: When comparing Hack and WebAssembly, there are several key differences to consider. These differences impact the use cases, performance, and compatibility of each technology.

  1. Language Compatibility: Hack is a programming language created by Facebook, tailored for PHP developers, while WebAssembly is designed to be compatible with a variety of languages, including C, C++, and Rust. This difference in language compatibility influences the developer base and the types of projects that can be implemented using each technology.

  2. Execution Environment: Hack code runs on the HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine), which is a virtual machine designed specifically for Hack, while WebAssembly is designed to run on web browsers directly. This difference in execution environment affects how the code is executed and the performance of the applications built with each technology.

  3. Compilation Process: Hack code is typically compiled into PHP code, which is then processed by the HHVM, while WebAssembly code is compiled into a binary format that can be executed directly by web browsers. This difference in the compilation process impacts the deployment and performance of applications built with each technology.

  4. Performance: Hack is known for its performance optimizations and type system, tailored for large-scale PHP applications, whereas WebAssembly is designed for high performance and portability across different platforms and architectures. This difference in performance priorities affects the types of applications that are best suited for each technology.

  5. Community and Support: Hack has a strong community of PHP developers and Facebook support behind it, while WebAssembly has a growing community of developers and support from major browser vendors like Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Apple. The difference in community and support influences the resources available for developers using each technology.

  6. Ease of Integration: Hack is seamlessly integrated with PHP and can be used within existing PHP codebases, while WebAssembly requires additional tools and knowledge to integrate it with existing web applications. This difference in ease of integration impacts the adoption of each technology by developers and organizations.

In Summary, Hack and WebAssembly differ in language compatibility, execution environment, compilation process, performance focus, community and support, and ease of integration, which in turn affects their usability and adoption in different scenarios.

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Detailed Comparison

Hack
Hack
WebAssembly
WebAssembly

Hack provides instantaneous type checking via a local server that watches the filesystem. It typically runs in less than 200 milliseconds, making it easy to integrate into your development workflow without introducing a noticeable delay.

It is an open standard that defines a portable binary code format for executable programs, and a corresponding textual assembly language, as well as interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment.

Fast Development; Type Checking; Built for HHVM; Type Annotations; Generics; Lambdas
Efficient and fast; Safe; Open and debuggable; Part of the open web platform
Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.5K
GitHub Stars
8.2K
GitHub Forks
3.1K
GitHub Forks
818
Stacks
818
Stacks
223
Followers
169
Followers
218
Votes
29
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 6
    Interoperates seamlessly with php
  • 6
    Open source
  • 5
    Backed by facebook
  • 4
    HHVM
  • 2
    PHP like
Cons
  • 2
    Security issues
Integrations
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
Rust
Rust
C++
C++
C lang
C lang

What are some alternatives to Hack, WebAssembly?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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