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A Talk Near the Future of Python (a.k.a., Dave live-codes a WebAssembly Interpreter)

David Beazley · talk · Watch on YouTube

Compilers, interpreters & program analysisPython, Ruby & scripting languagesSoftware practice, open source & careers

What it is

David Beazley's PyCon India closing keynote, in which he live-codes a stack machine and grows it into an interpreter that runs WebAssembly, then uses it to play a Rust-written game. It requires no prior WebAssembly knowledge.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Regarded as a brilliant live-coding talk that teaches WASM and interpreter writing, with several calling it among the best conference talks they have seen.

  • 7 people recommended it
  • 7 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2019, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “Mostly live coded, it really is pretty amazing but also quite insightful.”

    Live-coded talk on a WebAssembly interpreter in Python, amazing and insightful

    kiriliponi, 2019-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Let's Write an LLVM Specializer for Python (2015)”

  2. “it's quite possible the best conference talk I've ever seen.”

    Live-coded WebAssembly interpreter talk

    VBprogrammer, 2020-12 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2020?”

  3. “to be a brilliant introduction to WASM as well as writing interpreters in general.”

    Brilliant beginner-level introduction to WASM and writing interpreters

    milliams, 2021-07 · Strong recommendation · in “WebAssembly from Scratch: From FizzBuzz to DooM”

  4. “I found this [1] quite interesting.”

    Live-codes a stack machine into a WebAssembly interpreter, giving low-level understanding

    tzs, 2019-12 · Recommendation · in “W3C recommends WebAssembly”

  5. “And it doesn't require any knowledge about it beforehand.”

    Shows a WebAssembly interpreter coded in under an hour with no prior knowledge needed

    kfrane, 2021-06 · Recommendation · in “Pokegb: A gameboy emulator that only plays Pokémon Blue, in 68 lines of C++”

  6. “I think they are quite unique in their presentation, they tell a story.”

    Beazley's talks are unique and tell a story

    newswasboring, 2021-12 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Best Tech Talks”

  7. “his talks are way better than mine ;)”

    Example of an excellent speaker who breaks conventional talk rules

    skylurk, 2025-12 · Recommendation · in “So you want to speak at software conferences?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: webassembly, python, live coding, interpreters, stack machine

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