benagastov/bindweb-nim-wasm-compiler

This repository packages a complete in-browser development environment for writing programs in the Nim programming language and compiling them to WebAssembly. WebAssembly is a format that lets code written in languages other than JavaScript run inside a web browser at near-native speed. The bundle contains three main pieces. The first is a browser-based code editor, called the IDE, where you write Nim code and click a Build and Run button. The IDE runs an entire compiler toolchain inside the browser itself, going from Nim source code through C and then to WebAssembly, without sending anything to a server. The second piece is the Bindweb framework, a set of Nim tools that let a compiled Nim program update the page's content in real time, similar to how JavaScript frameworks work but written in Nim. The third piece is the toolchain, a set of Docker recipes and Makefile scripts that let you rebuild all the compiler files from their original source code instead of relying on pre-built copies. Getting started without any build step is simple: put the IDE folder on a local web server (a one-line Python command does this), open the browser, and click Build and Run. The pre-built compiler files, which total about 55 MB, are already included. The IDE can also export a finished app as a single self-contained HTML file for easy deployment. If you want to rebuild everything from source, expect to need 25 to 40 GB of free disk space and at least 16 GB of RAM, because compiling the Clang compiler and LLVM from scratch is resource-intensive. The build uses three Docker containers: one for the Clang compiler, one for the LLVM linker, and one for the Nim compiler itself. The Bindweb framework can be built without Docker if you have a Nim compiler installed natively. It targets WASI, a standard interface for WebAssembly programs. The README is detailed and explains the full compilation pipeline and the rationale for moving from pre-built binary blobs to a reproducible from-source build.