Agenda for subgroup meeting - July 14, 2020

[binji]

The next subgroup meeting is July 14, 2020 at 9am PDT (6pm CET). As with other Wasm meetings, we'll host this on zoom.

No registration required if you attended a previous meeting. Fill out the form here if it's your first time: https://forms.gle/JehrAB4gWbtHjybt9.

Please respond to this issue with topics for the agenda.

Agenda:

• Discussion: Criteria/Requirements for Linear memory GCs

[binji]

It was suggested that we have a discussion about criteria/requirements for a linear memory GC. Would anyone like to sign up to present on this topic?

[taralx]

I would, but if I spend time on wasm things it will be for the corpus. But 👍 to talking about it, even if there's no specific presentation.

[sabine]

Linear memory GC in what sense:
(1) better support for languages that bring their own GC to WASM?
or
(2) a GC provided by WASM that is integrated with the linear memory, as opposed to presenting as an abstract heap?

Is this about #78? Sounds very interesting to explore that.

[taralx]

Or (3) a GC that provides chunks of linear memory with distinct pointers?

[aardappel]

I guess to me the general question should be:

"if a language insists on managing its data inside linear memory (because it wants to reuse an existing language implementation, existing (GC) runtime, or other deep integration with C/C++ code, or because linear memory affords it more flexibility as to how data is managed to match the language semantics), how could Wasm support such a language to be more efficient, save on runtime code size and/or integrate better with the host?"

Besides @taralx #94 and my #78, there's is @RossTate's WebAssembly/design#1340 which is strongly related, and I believe @kripken has had several designs in the past on this topic.

I've already taken up past airtime with mine, and I wasn't going to pursue it further unless there was strong interest from others, so I'd prefer if someone else would speak on the topic :)

[binji]

Sorry I haven't followed up on this, I've been on vacation. It sounds like there's interest in discussing linear memory GCs, even without a presentation, is that right? If so, I'd still like to have someone frame the conversation.

[binji]

Notes here: WebAssembly/meetings#601