WASI preview1 modules aren't very modular. You can't compose them. All you can do is one shot compile & bundle the world into one massive module. You can't use that module to power another module, it basically has to be standalone.

Luke Wagner has a talk going through WASI 0.2 that's pretty excellent. The title is What is a component (and why)?, and we go step by step through the properties component-model enables: a Standard Portable Lightweight Finely-Sandboxed Cross-Language Compositional Module. You get basically none of these without component-model. https://youtu.be/tAACYA1Mwv4

The properties are amazing. Not only do we get Cross-Language, not only do we get composable, but ideally we get very very lightweight sandboxed processes that can safely re-use modules already loaded by the runtime. This could be such an incredible way to sandbox actively, with a base of supportinginrsriss dwarfing anything computer science has done before.

The wasm view here has been so shortsighted & brutal. Once again, the hype cycle has gotten big enough that a lot of people are very angry & actively trying to tear down & discredit. Like systemd, like K8s. With not even a passing attempt to show balanced views in the process, no nods to the possible or good, just remorseless total war. This is the famous typical dripping sense of disdain, arising again in angry stirrings, here now to rage against component-model. Holy shit yes is it ambitious and hard. Yes you should be afraid of failure, of this crew not pulling it off & not making it work. But my heavens what a bunch of far-too-typical backhanded mean-girl horseshit is being heaped up to spiritually crush & deaden the effort, convincing everyone we should never try hard or attemot big efforts.

I see a future where we can spawn safe secure processes instead of promises, where we can run processes at such scale. Where we can mix languages. There's something so intensely interesting & compelling, upscaling & paving the road for something like V8 isolated that have had such success enabling scalable online platforms, and taking it from exotic dark material for the hyperscalers & turning it to something standard & accessible, fast & secure, spanning the whole technical ecosystem. It's worth the risk ya'll. Maybe we'll hit every branch of the CORBA tree on the way down & fail, but I for one tend to think we're such an improved world since those days: the web technical architecture groups along with open source footing have been an incredible combination for hashing through hard problems & building good protocols & standards piece by piece that let us keep composing better solutions, that let us build upwards successfully. And I'm so excited for this future, for what could be here.

Please educate yourself & come correct if this is an interesting topic that you want to engage in; there's so many resources out there. Never have we had a time where it's easier to dig in, from wonderful talks to in depth meeting notes. Please be more serious than oMGggg cORbA gRoSS it'll never work. Most of all, I dare you imagine it does work. And as a smart open minded technical sort, you should leave some space for that as a possibility in your cynicism, should have the possibility of success in your risk profile.