Company
Date Published
Author
Armin Ronacher
Word count
1476
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

WASM (WebAssembly) is a technology that allows executing code from languages such as C, C++, Rust, and others in the browser at near-native speeds. It has gained popularity for edge computing and lightweight Docker replacements due to its fast sandboxing capabilities via the WASI standard. However, debugging with WASM poses significant challenges due to its stack-based nature, which makes it difficult to unwind the stack and access function names, line numbers, and file names in production. The lack of support for stack unwinding is a major limitation, but workarounds like creating JavaScript exception objects and using DWARF debug data can provide some insight into WASM frames. DWARF splitting, which separates debug information from the main executable, holds promise but is currently not widely supported due to issues with linking and referencing debug files. Debug IDs, proposed extensions for WASM, offer a solution to connect debug data with the correct WASM file, while source maps are inadequate for debugging WASM code. Despite these challenges, debugging remains a niche area within the WebAssembly community, but there are ongoing efforts to address these issues.