Is WebAssembly the new Java? I wouldn't be surprised to see standalone containers for running WebAssembly without needing all the trappings of a web browser.
Would anyone be able to provide an example of where this compiler would be useful? Is the goal to run the resulting JS in a server side environment?
No on the browser I think. It just lets you write your frontend in C++ instead of JavaScript.
For me the power is not to ‘write your frontend in c++’. It is to write performance critical pieces in c++ and have them run at near native speeds in the browser. Even better, reuse c++ components running on a boxed delivery in your cloud solution so you can share codebase between your cloud solutions and native solutions. Not sure how for we are yet, but that would be great.
Help me understand; why would I use it for JS (not WebAssembly)? Haven't we seen ScriptSharp already trying to do it and fail miserably?
Because you target browsers where WebAssembly is not available. If the JS integration is any good, to avoid interopability overhead with JS and the page DOM.
Don't know ScriptSharp, I'm more thinking of emscripten as something to compare it to - which hasn't been exactly a failure, but leaves room for improvement.