2025-08-30 –, FORGE (Room 1)
WebAssembly promises a future for write once, run anywhere—but what happens when you want to run untrusted Wasm binaries from any language, inside a Rust runtime, with domain-specific api? Explore the gnarly details of building a domain-specific container/plugin system, bridging the mismatch between guest expectations and host responsibilities, ensuring safety and determinism, and meaningful error reporting.
Let's walk through the real-world challenges of building a Wasm execution environment in Rust capable of ingesting binaries compiled from multiple languages, securely sandboxing them, and exposing a custom API tailored to a specific problem domain (e.g., plugins, embedded scripting, or automation engines). Expect tall tales/fishing stories about:
- The unpredictable diversity of Wasm outputs from different toolchains and languages
- Designing a domain-specific API that is expressive but safe to expose to potentially hostile code
- Handling I/O, concurrency, and resource constraints without compromising the host environment
- Dealing with the limitations of the Wasm spec and working around them without resorting to hacks
- Debugging Wasm (hint: it’s about as fun as it sounds)
- Bringing Rust to an organization that has never done rust before
Whether you're building a plugin system, a serverless function runtime, or just curious how far you can stretch Wasm and Rust together, this talk will leave you with a deeper understanding of the tradeoffs and techniques involved in hosting Wasm safely and effectively.
A veteran of the software industry with over 25 years of experience, Paul has seen it all. From computer security, web development, systems programming, distributed systems, databases, programming languages, and AI, he's run the gamut across many different industries; he enjoys the challenge.
In his spare time, he appreciates two wheeled vehicles, whether internal combustion or electric powered, and runs his own prototype manufacturing company.