Wookash Podcast Ben Visness | New paradigm for web development
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Jan 3, 2026 In this discussion, Ben Visnes, a Compiler and WebAssembly engineer at Mozilla, shares his journey from early web development with JavaScript to leading the Handmade Network community. He dives into the essence of low-level programming, the philosophy behind the Handmade movement, and the importance of ‘reinventing the wheel.' Ben explains WebAssembly's significance as a portable bytecode and its evolving role beyond browsers. He emphasizes real engineering practices and the challenges of memory management in web development. A must-listen for tech enthusiasts!
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From Web Dev To Compiler Engineer
- Ben moved from React/Go web work to compiler work at Mozilla after years at a small web company.
- His experience building a robust Go-based notification service showed the difference between ad-hoc coding and engineering with measurements.
You Need Feedback To Engineer Effectively
- Measure real behavior before optimizing: you need feedback to do real engineering.
- Without metrics and profiling you risk writing catastrophically wasteful code that appears fine until stressed.
Profile Before You Trust A 'Cache' Fix
- Open the profiler and verify the code does what you think before refactoring or adding caches.
- Avoid
