WASM modules often look like explicit state machines: imports supply effects, linear memory stores state, and functions transform typed inputs into outputs. Pure functions are easy to test, but modules can still mutate memory, globals, and tables.

  • Stack effects resemble local data-flow constraints.
  • SSA/IR compilers can lower structured control flow into WASM blocks.
  • Deterministic numeric code is easier to benchmark, but host imports can add nondeterminism.