WebAssembly Components: From Cloud to Edge

This course is designed for developers who have built or are building microservices and have experienced a high degree of friction in cloud native application development. Developers looking to embrace the simplicity of Functions as a Service (FaaS) without the overhead of cloud providers or sacrificing the ability to experiment and test locally and in any other environment will gain significant value from this course. In this course, you will learn foundational Rust skills such as creating and hosting WebAssembly modules. You will explore the JavaScript WebAssembly API for browsers and multiple alternative, non-web host runtimes for WebAssembly. You will become familiar with the benefits and usage of the component model and gain the ability to easily create distributed, cloud native applications using secure WebAssembly modules as a deployment target by leveraging open source projects. You will also be able to differentiate between the features and functionality afforded by the base WebAssembly specification versus additional features added by community tooling and open source projects, and have a clear understanding of how WebAssembly-based applications really work. After completing this course, you will be able to build portable, secure, lightweight WebAssembly modules that thrive in the cloud, at the edge, and anywhere in between.

• Develop foundational Rust skills, including creating and hosting WebAssembly modules.
• Utilize the JavaScript WebAssembly API for browsers.
• Introduce various alternative runtimes for WebAssembly beyond traditional web hosts.
• Analyze the benefits and usage of the component model.
• Construct distributed, cloud native applications using secure WebAssembly modules as a deployment target by leveraging open source projects.
• Differentiate the features and functionality afforded by the base WebAssembly specification versus additional features added by community tooling and open source projects.
• Explain how WebAssembly-based applications really work.

• Intermediate programming skills are required, though no specific language or platform is mandatory. The majority of the course code will be in Rust with a few sections in JavaScript and even raw WebAssembly Text (wat) format.
• You will need to have installed the Rust toolchain (including the wasm32-unknown target), and a modern web browser with a high degree of WebAssembly support (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, or Edge)