Scores of aspiring students turned up for the free session announced by IT expert Ziaullah Khan through his Facebook page on February 3. The session was held at Sea View beach. PHOTO: EXPRESS
KARACHI: If you haven't been living under a rock these past couple of decades, you would well know that Information Technology has become the driving force in any industry.
To be able to compete in today's competitive job market, one must have a basic knowledge of IT-related programmes that are employed in every field today.
The teacher
Keeping these needs in minds, an IT expert in Karachi, Ziaullah Khan, has introduced a new trend; he conducts classes on the beach, under the open sky to impart lessons on new developments in the IT world.
It all started with a simple post on Khan's Facebook page "If you have a taste for technology and if you wish to change your world, I am going to teach WebAssembly at 8am on Sunday at the Sea View McDonalds' garden." The first class was conducted on February 3, for which the Facebook promotions had started from a week ago.
According to Khan, WebAssembly (a standard that defines a binary format with the purpose of enabling the JavaScript engine of a web browser to execute scripts nearly as fast as native machine code) is going to stir a tsunami in the world of technology.
It will change the world of programming, web and mobile forever and will infuse into application development, the impact of which will be seen on the Internet of Things (IOT) (a network in which everyday devices are interconnected through the internet enabling them to share data).
The world of technology will not remain the same with the use of WebAssembly and hence, in order to prevent Pakistan from lagging behind, Khan has begun such classes with the purpose of educating and training students about the concepts that can take our country in a position to compete with the world.
Khan's Facebook post mentioned that all students, who wish to come to this free-of-cost class, will have to bring along their own laptops and 4G data modems.
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The students were elated over this new teaching trend and word of the class spread out in no time.
The class
Scores of students came to class carrying their own laptops and journals. They attended the lecture delivered by Khan on the use of WebAssembly.
Khan explained that the browsers currently run on HTML and JAVA scripts. WebAssembly is a new technology which will run on all browsers and servers. He said that for the first time all the IT companies have collaborated over a subject and introduced such a technology, which can run on every browser. "You can write the entire logic with the help of the technology, and it will be accepted by every machine."
He further explained that HTML and several other computer languages are presentation language, while the JAVA script is slower. The WebAssembly machine works as per the required capacity of the browser. WebAssembly does not have to learn any language for JAVA script as any language can be the main code. All the browsers in Pakistan have begun using it.
Students' feedback
A student, Humna, while speaking to The Express Tribune said that it was good to see that there are still teachers in our society who want to pass on their knowledge to the students. Amid the chaos and race to make money, Khan reaches Sea View early morning and devotes his most prized possessions - time and knowledge - to the students free of cost.
"I have keen interest in technology, hence I sacrificed my sleep on my day off, and went to Sea View so that I could learn about WebAssembly, which is a new sensation in the world of technology," said Humna.
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Another student, Anwar said that he had no knowledge about WebAssembly but being an IT student, it stirred curiosity in him to learn about it, and hence he attended the open class.
"After having attended the first class I learnt that the computer language running behind JAVA and HTML browsers has changed, of which the public is unaware, but being an IT student I should be familiar with it."
He said that the concept of an open class is amazing. "I had never thought that education could be imparted in this way. We had come to the beach for amusement purpose numerous times, but coming for the purpose of education helped me realise that people who are curious to learn new things and take interest in it will always go the extra mile, provided the opportunity."
WebAssembly is a new type of code which can be run on a modern browser. The main aim behind it is to halt the repeated compile process in order to cut down web page load and time so that its performance can also be improved.
It is a binary format file of a very small size. Users do not need to write the WebAssembly on our own, in fact, usually, it is compiled through other programming languages. Users are not trapped in the JAVA script as now WebAssembly can help them through other programming languages.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 8th, 2019.
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