JavaScript vs. PostCSS vs. PureScript vs. WebAssembly Comparison Chart

PostCSS is a versatile tool that transforms CSS using JavaScript plugins, enabling a wide range of functionalities such as linting, supporting variables and mixins, transpiling future CSS syntax, and inlining images. It serves as a framework for developing CSS tools and can be utilized to create template languages similar to Sass and LESS. The core of PostCSS comprises a CSS parser that generates an abstract syntax tree, a set of classes that form the tree, a CSS generator that produces a CSS line for the object tree, and a code map generator for CSS changes. Plugins operate on the object tree, analyzing and modifying it before PostCSS generates a new CSS string reflecting these changes. Notable plugins include Autoprefixer, which adds vendor prefixes, and Stylelint, a modern CSS linter that enforces consistent conventions and avoids errors in stylesheets. PostCSS is employed by industry leaders such as Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains.

WebAssembly (abbreviated Wasm) is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Wasm is designed as a portable compilation target for programming languages, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications. The Wasm stack machine is designed to be encoded in a size- and load-time-efficient binary format. WebAssembly aims to execute at native speed by taking advantage of common hardware capabilities available on a wide range of platforms. WebAssembly describes a memory-safe, sandboxed execution environment that may even be implemented inside existing JavaScript virtual machines. When embedded in the web, WebAssembly will enforce the same-origin and permissions security policies of the browser. WebAssembly is designed to be pretty-printed in a textual format for debugging, testing, experimenting, optimizing, learning, teaching, and writing programs by hand. The textual format will be used when viewing the source of Wasm modules on the web.