101–110 of 138 posts
One of the authors here—thank you all for the nice words. Happy to answer questions!
I am just curious, what was the process that lead you to decide to use Python to implement the browser? I feel like JavaScript via node would have offered a more related programming experience.
See also this previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28898157 (409 points | Oct 19, 2021 | 63 comments)
Web Browser Engineering: Scheduling tasks and threads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30336408 - Feb 2022 (3 comments)
Web Browser Engineering - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28898157 - Oct 2021 (63 comments)
How Browsers Lay Out Web Pages - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26707368 - April 2021 (50 comments)
Web Browser Engineering (A Book) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24055748 - Aug 2020 (1 comment)
It's refreshing that browser engineering seems to become a "trend" now. The ecosystem is quite sparse with basically only Google, Apple and Mozilla defining it. I'd like to see forward into a future with more independent browser engines.
I don't think it's worth trying to write a rendering engine for HTML. You will never finish - HTML is a spec fully owned by Google and Apple at this point and it's just too complex to implement from scratch. The interesting space is really post-HTML UI/document tech. There's another thread running about Typst which is a sort of better LaTeX. Markdown was highly impactful. There's a lot of scope for people to do inter…
sounds like a skill issue
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Layout is so difficult that it made me quit using Common Lisp and ncurses to build my passion project and become the very thing I swore to destroy (a React developer). I can't be the only one who wants a simpler layout language than CSS that's designed with two decades of hindsight to provide the maximum simplicity-expressiveness product. Are there any serious projects to engineer something like this, or has everyone…
LLVM backend for CSS3? (This must a joke, right??)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Layout is so difficult that it made me quit using Common Lisp and ncurses to build my passion project and become the very thing I swore to destroy (a React developer). I can't be the only one who wants a simpler layout language than CSS that's designed with two decades of hindsight to provide the maximum simplicity-expressiveness product. Are there any serious projects to engineer something like this, or has everyone…
Constraint-based layouts. The world's most sophisticated UI system uses that (Apple's UIKit).
One great thing about this book is the 'stuff I didn't do' part. Layout is really hard. Just tables by themselves are hard, even without any css around them. CSS makes layout impossibly difficult. I challenge anyone to keep the whole CSS spec and its associated behaviors in their head. At this point css + html + javascript have become a dynamic PDL, and probably is one of the most complex pieces of software today. As…
This Babylonian tower will crumble one day. Layout does not have to be so complex. There are dozens of GUI frameworks with simpler layout system. Those are enough for applications everyone uses.
It's refreshing that browser engineering seems to become a "trend" now. The ecosystem is quite sparse with basically only Google, Apple and Mozilla defining it. I'd like to see forward into a future with more independent browser engines.
I don't think it's worth trying to write a rendering engine for HTML. You will never finish - HTML is a spec fully owned by Google and Apple at this point and it's just too complex to implement from scratch. The interesting space is really post-HTML UI/document tech. There's another thread running about Typst which is a sort of better LaTeX. Markdown was highly impactful. There's a lot of scope for people to do inter…
Of course, jump forward 24 years and the KDE browser engine is basically the only game in town- the basis of both Chrome and Safari. Absolutely no way I saw that coming.
One great thing about this book is the 'stuff I didn't do' part. Layout is really hard. Just tables by themselves are hard, even without any css around them. CSS makes layout impossibly difficult. I challenge anyone to keep the whole CSS spec and its associated behaviors in their head. At this point css + html + javascript have become a dynamic PDL, and probably is one of the most complex pieces of software today. As…
Layout is so difficult that it made me quit using Common Lisp and ncurses to build my passion project and become the very thing I swore to destroy (a React developer). I can't be the only one who wants a simpler layout language than CSS that's designed with two decades of hindsight to provide the maximum simplicity-expressiveness product. Are there any serious projects to engineer something like this, or has everyone…
It's refreshing that browser engineering seems to become a "trend" now. The ecosystem is quite sparse with basically only Google, Apple and Mozilla defining it. I'd like to see forward into a future with more independent browser engines.
Or perhaps an entirely new platform/protocol, since this one is completely saturated with complexity at this point.
There is QML (see https://www.canonic.com) and Gemini (see https://gmi.skyjake.fi/lagrange/) as alternatives.