WasmGC and the future of front-end Java development [Video]

WebAssembly’s garbage collection extension makes it easier to run languages like Java on the front end. Could it be the start of a new era in web development?

Credit: Aon Khanisorn

JavaScript is the clear choice for front-end development today, but there is a longstanding push to be able to use Java on the front end. Among other things, Java brings a vast ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and application code, which can be exposed via its APIs. Java and languages like it also offer performance optimizations that JavaScript can’t match.

Historically, Java’s sophisticated garbage collection algorithm was an obstacle, but Google’s recent push to implement Java’s garbage collection support in Chrome suggests a path forward. The key to it all is WebAssembly’s garbage collection extension, WasmGC.

Google Sheets and WasmGC

One of the great advancements in software development is automatic memory management, otherwise known as garbage collection. In some programming scenarios, it makes sense for a developer to tinker directly with memory, …