Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Ladybird browser project

ladybird.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 293 posts

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#61

Post by martypitt »

jstanley wrote: post #57
martypitt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew has to say, but this seems over the top. He claims that authors promoting their open source software on channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is "selfish and unethical outright": > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to maximize their odds of becoming…

> you may have different ethical standards Isn't this the exact opposite of zealotry? Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others.

You may be right, Zealot may not be the right word here.

But after reading that article, I was definitely left feeling judged because I choose to do exactly the things he's talking about, for exactly the reasons he's suggesting. Maybe that's on me, but I certainly felt his standards imposed on me, disclaimer or not.

Also, given the conviction with which he argues with in the article, that disclaimer feels a little weak -- kinda like when someone says "No offence, but... ".

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#62

Post by la_oveja »

the_third_wave wrote: post #35
la_oveja wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

small group of lazy front-end people? i think you actually mean a small group of chrome developers single-handedly deciding how web should work, while having the vast majority of the market share to push those decisions.

Well, no, that is not how it works. Blink undoubtedly has an oversize influence on 'web standards' (which are more and more defined as 'whatever Blink does') but that would not be that much of a problem if web developers built and tested their sites against more than just Chrome and Edge (Blink) and Safari (Webkit). History is repeating itself since the same thing happened when Microsoft's Internet Explo[rd]er was th…

i am aware, i work as webdev and my current project is only Blink compatible. my employer does not want me to waste any time ensuring i support other browsers that are not going to be used.

web should be able to be viewed in any browser and get the same document.

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#63

Post by martypitt »

jraph wrote: post #59
martypitt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew has to say, but this seems over the top. He claims that authors promoting their open source software on channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is "selfish and unethical outright": > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to maximize their odds of becoming…

> or even more controversially, make money from FOSS I doubt Drew is against making money from FOSS. He actually runs a business (businesses?) around FOSS. I don't think it's controversial to make money from FOSS anymore. FOSDEM just happened, many companies making money from FOSS were there, and they are liked. Some specific ways of making money might be less appreciated, but not the whole concept. People are not si…

> No, that feels like living in an imperfect world and trying to make it better.

Fair call.

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#64

Post by jraph »

lostlogin wrote: post #60
jstanley wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you may have different ethical standards Isn't this the exact opposite of zealotry? Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others.

> Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others It’s even more specific than that though isn’t it? A fanatical belief in a single cause to the exclusion of all else.

Yes. "fanatical" is key here.

The commenter somewhat retracted their use of this word in a sibling comment, but it seems important to me that we don't confuse strong views with zealotry. Drew's views are certainly very strong.

Strong views can be rational and well thought. I even believe they are often the ones that can push the world to a better place. Usually you can even argue with someone yielding strong views if they are rational (unless the person is bad at communication / is an asshole, of course it's possible). Strong views can shake you up and are not always enjoyable.

Zealotry is just plain irrational and dangerous and there's no way you can have a constructive discussion with a zealot.

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#65

Post by rjh29 »

jug wrote: post #47

It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers build a new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I didn't think it was possible on this small scale in terms of man hours and funding. However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're finally seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writi…

> if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back.

Probably not. Yeah we have web standards and some idea of how to architect it, but the total set of APIs and HTML/CSS features a browser supports is probably changing faster than the Ladybird team can actively implement it. The API surface is just impossibly large compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Look at all of these: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API

And that doesn't include the updates to Javascript, MathML, SVG, HTTP-based security features, encryption or media support.

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#68

Post by jll29 »

stephen_g wrote: post #19

It's really quite incredible that one guy basically started a project to create a whole operating system from scratch for fun and to give himself something interesting to do, and then accidentally created one of the most viable new browser engines in a decade or two... I've been watching the development videos for a year or two, and the speed that this has progressed in such a short time is unbelievable. Now they hav…

He is a world expert on Web rendering, and an extremely capable C++ developer. One of their success recipes is to code up the various specifications directly, which is - today - the best way to go about this. They are also heavily test-driven.

He did not even use the C++ standard library, when he says "from scratch" it includes his own string class, for better or worse, which is fine since it's "just for fun", "to learn" etc. And just when you think a library and an OS are crazy, he announced a browser and a JavaScript engine on top. Then a JIT compiler, then Jakt, their own novel programming language, because neither C++ nor Rust is what makes him perfectly happy.

More than his expertise I admire his modesty and kindness - unlike Linus etc. he is not full of himself, and each of his videos gives lots of credit name by name of who did what. A perfect role model for open source.

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#69

Post by dash2 »

jraph wrote: post #59
martypitt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew has to say, but this seems over the top. He claims that authors promoting their open source software on channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is "selfish and unethical outright": > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to maximize their odds of becoming…

> or even more controversially, make money from FOSS I doubt Drew is against making money from FOSS. He actually runs a business (businesses?) around FOSS. I don't think it's controversial to make money from FOSS anymore. FOSDEM just happened, many companies making money from FOSS were there, and they are liked. Some specific ways of making money might be less appreciated, but not the whole concept. People are not si…

> No, that feels like living in an imperfect world and trying to make it better. To improve something, you generally need to be part of it and its imperfections.

Right, but that's the hypocrisy, no? He's being rude about people who use github, or post an article on HN, but surely most of those guys are doing just the above. When is it OK to use non-free software and when not? Maybe there's a dividing line you can draw about "platforms".

Re: The Ladybird browser project

#70

Post by sph »

jug wrote: post #47

It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers build a new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I didn't think it was possible on this small scale in terms of man hours and funding. However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're finally seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writi…

It is not any easier, because we still have a monopoly running the show, only it's not called Microsoft anymore.

If anyone threatens Google position, they can literally throw money at the problem, invent some overcomplicated standard, implement it in Blink, and have the competition chase them. It doesn't need to go through W3C either, if it works in Chrome, all web developers will adopt it and any smaller engine will necessarily have to support it or risk losing whatever little market share they have left.

Having control of the internet now is of greater strategic importance than it was 20-30 years ago when Microsoft was king of the hill.

Post reply on HN