WASM from Zero

This course is part of Rust for Data Engineering Specialization

Instructor: Noah Gift

Included with

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5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

5 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

5 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Compile Rust to WebAssembly and render to the HTML5 canvas with a deterministic Canvas2DRenderer
Build Elm-style components with update/view, then compose them with a small router into a multi-screen app
Package with wasm-pack and verify VDOM behavior against committed snapshot fixtures for byte-identical CI runs

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This course is part of the Rust for Data Engineering Specialization

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There are 5 modules in this course

WASM from Zero is a hands-on introduction to WebAssembly for engineers who want to ship fast, portable, sandboxed code that runs anywhere: the browser, the edge, the server, and embedded devices. You will learn what WebAssembly is, why it was designed, how it relates to Rust, and how to compile Rust libraries to .wasm modules that can be invoked from JavaScript, Python, or any host language. The course walks through the toolchain (rustc target wasm32, wasm-bindgen, wasm-pack, wasmtime, wasmer), the WASM component model, WASI, and the security and performance trade-offs that make WebAssembly a compelling deployment target for data engineering, ML inference, plugin systems, and serverless workloads. By the end of this course, you will be able to build, package, deploy, and debug a Rust-to-WASM data processing module, embed it in a web page and a server runtime, and reason about when WASM is the right tool versus a native binary or a container. This is part of the Rust for Data Engineering specialization and assumes basic Rust familiarity from Rust From Zero.

Covers the HTML5 canvas element as a 2D raster surface, every draw is immediate-mode, Canvas2D vs WebGL vs WebGPU, Canvas2DRenderer wraps a web_sys::CanvasRenderingContext2d and exposes the same draw API as the terminal renderer, and every method takes an aprender_present_core::Color and a Rect, not raw f64s.

What's included

6 videos6 readings

6 videosTotal 9 minutes

1.1.1 The Browser Canvas2 minutes
1.1.2 Presentar Canvas2d Renderer2 minutes
1.1.3 Nan Safe Coords Color Clamp1 minute
1.2.1 App Mount Returns Result2 minutes
1.2.2 JsValue Color Roundtrip2 minutes
1.2.3 Widget Trait Paint Canvas Rect1 minute

6 readingsTotal 51 minutes

About This Course10 minutes
Key Terms: The Browser Canvas as a 2D Draw Surface10 minutes
Machine Code to WASM1 minute
Reflection: The Browser Canvas as a 2D Draw Surface10 minutes
Key Terms: App::mount Returns Result, Not Panic10 minutes
Reflection: App::mount Returns Result, Not Panic10 minutes

Port the Elm-style init / update / view shape from the terminal app to the browser without changing its meaning. State lives in WebAssembly linear memory, update is the single mutator, and view returns a Virtual DOM. Then plug the loop into the browser by treating requestAnimationFrame as the event loop, using a dirty flag to keep view at-most-once-per-frame, and storing every JS closure in a Vec so App::unmount drops them with zero leaks.

What's included

6 videos4 readings

6 videosTotal 8 minutes

2.1.1 Init Update View WASM1 minute
2.1.2 Counter on Canvas1 minute
2.1.3 Replay Determinism WASM1 minute
2.2.1 Request Animation Frame1 minute
2.2.2 At Most Once Per Frame1 minute
2.2.3 Unmount Drops Callbacks2 minutes

4 readingsTotal 40 minutes

Key Terms: init / update / view — The Elm Shape, Retargeted10 minutes
Reflection: init / update / view — The Elm Shape, Retargeted10 minutes
Key Terms: requestAnimationFrame as the Browser’s Event Loop10 minutes
Reflection: requestAnimationFrame as the Browser’s Event Loop10 minutes

What's included

6 videos4 readings

6 videosTotal 9 minutes

3.1.1 Sparkline Canvas Port1 minute
3.1.2 Braille Graph Canvas1 minute
3.1.3 Monotonic Cursor Bounds Clamp1 minute
3.2.1 Component Layout Non Overlap1 minute
3.2.2 Browser Router Total Match1 minute
3.2.3 Hash Routing Demo2 minutes

4 readingsTotal 40 minutes

Key Terms: Charts — Sparkline and Braille Graph in the Browser10 minutes
Reflection: Charts — Sparkline and Braille Graph in the Browser10 minutes
Key Terms: Components and Router — Disjoint Rects, Total Match10 minutes
Reflection: Components and Router — Disjoint Rects, Total Match10 minutes

Bundles the WASM artifact for production and verifies behavior without launching a real browser. Covers the wasm32-unknown-unknown Rust target, wasm-bindgen as the JS<->Rust bridge, and the presentar-cli serve command for local hosting. Then introduces Probar, a deterministic VDOM-snapshot harness: stringify a virtual DOM tree, compare against a golden inline string, and assert correctness with zero headless-browser dependencies.

What's included

6 videos4 readings

6 videosTotal 8 minutes

4.1.1 wasm32-unknown-unknown2 minutes
4.1.2 wasm-bindgen JS Bridge1 minute
4.1.3 presentar-cli Serve and Bundle1 minute
4.2.1 VDOM Snapshot Stringify1 minute
4.2.2 Golden Diff Inline String1 minute
4.2.3 No Headless Browser1 minute

4 readingsTotal 40 minutes

Key Terms: wasm-pack and the JS Bridge10 minutes
Reflection: wasm-pack and the JS Bridge10 minutes
Key Terms: Probar VDOM Snapshot Testing10 minutes
Reflection: Probar VDOM Snapshot Testing10 minutes

Tie everything together by building wasm-dash, a real-time system dashboard rendered entirely in WebAssembly. Compose every prior module — Canvas2D rendering, Elm-style update/view, components, charts, and the router — into one screen. Use a committed snapshot fixture for zero-panic determinism, a short pure view() composing earlier widgets, and a six-demo gallery that proves WASM-from-Rust handles real interactive workloads.

What's included

3 videos6 readings1 assignment

3 videosTotal 5 minutes

5.1.1 Snapshot Fixture1 minute
5.1.2 view() Composes M1–M41 minute
5.2.1 Six-Demo Gallery Tour3 minutes

6 readingsTotal 60 minutes

Key Terms: wasm-dash Snapshot Fixture and view() Composition10 minutes
Reflection: wasm-dash Snapshot Fixture and view() Composition10 minutes
Key Terms: Six-Demo Gallery10 minutes
Reflection: Six-Demo Gallery10 minutes
Before You Go10 minutes
Next Steps10 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 30 minutes

Final Graded Quiz: WASM from Zero30 minutes

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Instructor

Noah Gift

Pragmatic AI Labs

58 Courses3,782 learners

Offered by

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