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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

I think it will be much worse.

Minified Javascript is pretty easy to turn back into something moderately understandable just by "prettifying" it. I do this all the time. It works pretty well because it started as Javascript, so turning it back into Javascript has a relatively clean mapping. WebAssembly will have started as some other language or even as no language at all - there may be no mapping back to anything Javascript could represent. It will be much closer to disassembly of machine code, or Java byte code, which is possible but challenging enough that most ordinary developers never do it.

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I think WebAssembly will be much closer to Java byte code than actual machine assembly. And Java byte code can be easily decompiled into readable Java code (at least as readable as minified Javascript).

True, but this is already happening with asm.js. Is webassembly any more objectionable than that? Instead of causing existing applications to further obfuscate their code, it seems to be bringing new types of applications to the browser.

A polyfill to Javascript is already planned.

https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/Polyfill.m...

its built into the spec of WASM for it to be able to be "prettified" as well. I imagine it'd do about as good of a job as current prettifying of minified JS.

"The WebAssembly text format, which is designed to be read and written when using tools (e.g., assemblers, debuggers, profilers), is specified as a textual projection of a module's AST."

This is apart of the MVP even. I think the authors of WASM actually agree with your opinions here and are working to a system that satisfies that concern.

BTW taken from, https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/blob/master/MVP.md

> I think the authors of WASM actually agree with your opinions here and are working to a system that satisfies that concern

That's very reassuring - I hope it works out that way.

That's exactly why we have the free software movement.

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