Very interesting! They say they went from a stack-based IR, which provided faster translation but slow execution time to a register-based one, which has slightly slower translations, but faster execution time. This in contrast with other runtimes which provide much slower translation times but very fast execution time via JIT.

I assume that for very short-lived programs, a stack based interpreter could be faster. And for long-lived programs, a JIT would be better.

This new IR seems to be targeting a sweet spot of short, but not super short lived programs. Also, it's a great alternative for environments where JIT is not possible.

I'm happy to see all these alternatives in the Wasm world! It's really cool. And thanks for sharing!