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Opera moves to WebKit

my.opera.com

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Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#181

Post by bzbarsky »

drinchev wrote: post #40
Arelius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that I think Firefox is now actually a really great piece of software, this is a primary reason why I continue to use Firefox while everyone else in the office uses chrome.

Yes, you are right, I really love to hear that. But as a webdeveloper my first task after I write some code is to test it in a webkit browser. Webkit is everywhere iPad, iPhone, Chrome, Safari, ( now Opera ). I think bad developers will start to exclude other engines support if percentage of non-webkit browsers goes very low. And since a lot of websites are coded from amateurs ( there's nothing wrong to this ) there…

It's not just amateurs.

The "mobile" sites out there are overwhelmingly WebKit-only. We're talking sites from Google, Disney, Apple, various news sites, etc, not sites done by amateurs.

And they're not accidentally WebKit-only in many cases, but deliberately so.

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#182

Post by forcer »

c1u wrote: post #143
rplnt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As highlighted by my comment, it's middle and eastern Europe : Ukraine 20% (36%), Slovakia 6% (13%), Poland 7% (12%), Czech Republic 5% (10%), Russia 14% (32%), Belarus 32% (45%), Kazachstan 32% (16%) Also, Mobile browsers are not insignificant market: (whole) Europe 24% (50%) Numbers from statcounter.com as of January 2013 (January 2010). I picked 2010 as it was about the time Chrome started it's push around here (I…

Those are all immature web markets. By the time the majority of web users in those countries spend a significant amount of money online, they probably wont be using Opera anymore. If you're looking for more file-sharing users, sure, target these markets. But if you want to make money today then don't waste your time. (I've lived in, started/run businesses, and produced web products in Eastern Europe).

thank god for people like you who spread the word about how you can't make money on the web in those markets :) all I can say that you did not try hard enough :)

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#183

Post by gcp »

coldtea wrote: post #157
gcp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some species DO get extinguished. Yeah, and I'm pointing out it's the ones with more hope for the future, rather than the ones that are obviously doomed in the very long run. If we want web engine evolution happening somebody should build a BETTER than Webkit engine Yes, and as already explained, this will become near-impossible if there is no standard, but just a bunch of webpages that need the renderer to do "whate…

> Some species DO get extinguished. >>Yeah, and I'm pointing out it's the ones with more hope for the future, rather than the ones that are obviously doomed in the very long run. I don't understand what this means. If you want to use evolution as an analogy, you should accept the fact the those that get extinguished were simply inferior to adapt and LESS "hope for the future". > Yes, and as already explained, this wi…

I don't understand what this means. If you want to use evolution as an analogy, you should accept the fact the those that get extinguished were simply inferior to adapt and LESS "hope for the future".

Not at all, it's a phenomenon called "getting stuck in a local optimum" (as opposed to the global one).

Contrary to what you claim, evolution doesn't play well with standards -- then you wouldn't have competition, just some committee deciding what the spec should be and several implementations. Implementing the same predetermined spec is hardly "evolutionary".

You seem to have an incorrect understanding of how W3C standards appear. Browsers implement a new feature (through prefixing), often competitively, and if it's considered generally useful the browser vendors get together and try to agree on a common API that is most useful and sane. After a while the prefix goes away and the standardized API is used. There's been some complaints about WebKit refusing to do the latter, which surely is a contributing factor to Opera's decision.

Without this common API, you'd have no chance in implementing the same features independently. Without vendor competition, there's no incentive to standardize the API, which precludes future competition.

The current web and especially WebKit itself thank their existence to such a spec.

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#184

Post by DanBC »

blablabla123 wrote: post #175
tripzilch wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, "possibly"? Either you agree that Opera implemented standards as strictly as possible (really the only way when you your own rendering engine with such a small market share) while aiming for compatibility at the same time (which is implemented by copying certain quirks--and O isn't the only one that does that--as well as having a large database of popular sites that are fixed with bits of custom JS)…

>Either you agree that Opera implemented standards as strictly as possible (really the only way when you your own rendering engine with such a small market share) while aiming for compatibility at the same time Noble aim but that doesn't work in the consumer world. I am pretty open-minded, so I am seriously trying to use Opera every 2 or 3 years. And each time I really start to enjoy using it but after one or two day…

> Noble aim but that doesn't work in the consumer world. I am pretty open-minded, so I am seriously trying to use Opera every 2 or 3 years. And each time I really start to enjoy using it but after one or two days I get horribly disappointed: a significant number of websites I like just doesn't work. Not just loss in function, they are completely unusuable, for instance I get a white page.

You're saying that's the fault of Opera when it's possibly the fault of lazy devs.

You used to (still have?) devs testing for Opera and then preventing users going any further. Users would spoof the agent id string. So then devs started doing more tests, and rejecting Opera.

(https://groups.google.com/group/alt.sysadmin.recovery/tree/b...)

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#185

Post by bzbarsky »

supercoder wrote: post #124
_pmf_ wrote: post #107

Welcome monoculture. It's really amazing how Opera could keep up with the rest for so long, though.

IE and Firefox still exist.

IE does not exist on mobile (though they're trying).

Firefox is working on it, but it's an uphill battle.

"mobile" sites are overwhelmingly coded to be WebKit-only.

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#186

Post by dgesang »

After reading some comments here I come to the conclusion that (too) many web developers are just a bunch of opportunistic ignorant hypocrites. On the one hand they repeatedly state that constantly expanding variety of HTML9 technologies[1] is THE best thing that could have ever happen to the Internet and that there is nothing worse than mono culture. On the other hand they do not seem to be willing to even consider testing their webapps with a browser with a market share below 10%, because it's just not that important, and embrace the overall greatness of Chrome/Webkit and that it should be the only browser we should develop for/with.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5206211

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#187

Post by mcrittenden »

pestaa wrote: post #4

WebKit was the reason why I started using other browsers -- I'm very excited to see it in Opera! I wonder what'll happen to Dragonfly, their integrated development platform? It was a neat project, although arguably inferior to Firebug/Chrome Dev Tools in many areas. Good luck Opera!

I was wondering that too. I assume Dragonfly will die and they will switch to WebKit/Chromium's dev tools instead. If that happens, I very much hope that they will rebuild Dragonfly's unique bits for WebKit's dev tools and submit them as patches, so nothing of value is lost.

Re: Opera moves to WebKit

#188

Post by blablabla123 »

DanBC wrote: post #184
blablabla123 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either you agree that Opera implemented standards as strictly as possible (really the only way when you your own rendering engine with such a small market share) while aiming for compatibility at the same time Noble aim but that doesn't work in the consumer world. I am pretty open-minded, so I am seriously trying to use Opera every 2 or 3 years. And each time I really start to enjoy using it but after one or two day…

> Noble aim but that doesn't work in the consumer world. I am pretty open-minded, so I am seriously trying to use Opera every 2 or 3 years. And each time I really start to enjoy using it but after one or two days I get horribly disappointed: a significant number of websites I like just doesn't work. Not just loss in function, they are completely unusuable, for instance I get a white page. You're saying that's the fau…

>You're saying that's the fault of Opera when it's possibly the fault of lazy devs.

Obviously it's "hobby devs" breaking the standards and Opera having low tolerance for that. As a matter of fact, a large part of the web's success is due to hobbyists. The hobbyists were only able to contribute to the success because it was and still is so easy. You don't have to be a HTML or JS guru to create a dynamic web page. On the other hand this allows for many devs that never even heard of HTML validators, JS linters etc.

I think it's good that most HTML/JS implementations are very fault tolerant. It's good and the decline of XHTML, XSLT and friends underlines that.

>You used to (still have?) devs testing for Opera and then preventing users going any further. Users would spoof the agent id string. So then devs started doing more tests, and rejecting Opera. >(https://groups.google.com/group/alt.sysadmin.recovery/tree/b...)

In 2003 Mozilla and friends had the same problem sometimes too.

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