What kind of tool is WebAssembly that Polkadot mainly supports?
"Polkadot Knowledge Graph" is our entry-level article on Polkadot from zero to one. We try to start from the most basic part of Polkadot and provide you with a comprehensive understanding of Polkadot. Of course, this is a huge project. Engineering is also full of challenges. However, we hope that through such efforts, everyone can correctly understand Polkadot, and people who do not know Polkadot can easily and quickly grasp Polkadot-related knowledge. Today is the 30th issue of this column. Learn about Polkadot A convenient and secure developer toolWebAssembly（Wasm）。
Previously, the topic of using Wasm for blockchain development has aroused extensive discussions.
EVM is a virtual machine commonly used in blockchain, and it is also the smart contract operating environment of Ethereum. Although the emergence of EVM can make it easier for developers to deploy smart contracts, it also has many limitations.
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What is WebAssembly?
WebAssembly, or Wasm for short. The official definition is: a new format that is portable, small in size, fast in loading and compatible with the Web.
To be precise, Wasm is a binary instruction format designed for stack-based virtual machines. Wasm is designed to target platforms in high-level languages like C/C++/Rust, enabling client and server applications to be deployed on the web.
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What are the characteristics of WebAssembly?
As a compilation target, WebAssembly can compile C, C++, Java and other programming languages into machine codes instead of a few lines of handwritten codes, and the converter is omitted in this process. Therefore, Wasm has the characteristics of fast, efficient, memory safety, etc., and is very open and has been loved by many developers.
Efficiency: Wasm has a complete set of semantics. Its binary format loads quickly and can greatly reduce the size of the code package. Ultimately, it relies on hardware capabilities to achieve native execution efficiency.
Security: Wasm runs in a sandboxed execution environment, and can even share an environment with the current Java virtual machine. Security in the web environment is achieved by strictly adhering to the permission policies of the host browser and maintaining backward compatibility.
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Why use WebAssembly?
WebAssembly is a platform-independent binary format, meaning that it will run the same instructions on any machine it operates on. Blockchains require determinism so that there are reliable state transition updates across all nodes in a peer-to-peer network without forcing each node to run the exact same hardware.
Wasm is well suited for reliability across a wide variety of machines. Wasm is efficient and fast. This efficiency means that it can be uploaded to the chain as a block of code without too much state bloat, while maintaining its ability to execute at near-native speed.
Second, hard forks, the standard method of upgrading blockchains, are slow, inefficient, and error-prone due to the level of offline coordination required, and thus tend to bundle many upgrades into one massive event.
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As a widely supported high-performance standard, WebAssembly has also been affirmed by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood. Gavin believes that "WebAssembly is the future of smart contracts."
This format is still in the process of rapid development and will be the basis for distributed system development in the future. Many public chains are also gradually using Wasm technology. For developers, Polkadot smart contracts can be developed in any language compiled into Wasm, and smart contract development will become easier.
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