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Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

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Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#111

Post by postalrat »

jojobas wrote: post #100
postalrat wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can built a basic app with html, javascript, etc that supports many platforms in an evening. How long do you think it would take to support windows, macos, ios, android, xbox, linux, etc, etc? Much more than 50x the time even if you already are familiar with development on all the plaforms.

Qt covers 5 of the 6 platforms you named, and many more "etc". Yes it takes a bit more than a boot camp graduate to code that, and might take a bit more time still.

5 of the 6 isn't a fair comparison

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#112

Post by Liquid_Fire »

menaerus wrote: post #110
Liquid_Fire wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be right, but you're stating this without any evidence, so I don't think it's clearly "wrong or misleading". There are many cases of software rewrites failing, so I'm not sure you can take for granted that "greenfield project" implies higher success rate, and even if you did, I don't see how you can judge how much of this was due to it being rewritten from scratch vs that it was in Rust to claim "major part…

It's common sense what I said. It applies across the industry regardless of the programming languages used. On the contrary, where's the evidence suggesting that the Rust is what made Gecko rewrite succeed? Has there been any rewrite from scratch with some other programming language?

No, I don't think there's any concrete evidence either way. I'm not trying to argue that it was Rust that made it succeed - I'm sure in reality it was some mixture of both, as well as other factors.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#113

Post by steveklabnik »

menaerus wrote: post #110
Liquid_Fire wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be right, but you're stating this without any evidence, so I don't think it's clearly "wrong or misleading". There are many cases of software rewrites failing, so I'm not sure you can take for granted that "greenfield project" implies higher success rate, and even if you did, I don't see how you can judge how much of this was due to it being rewritten from scratch vs that it was in Rust to claim "major part…

It's common sense what I said. It applies across the industry regardless of the programming languages used. On the contrary, where's the evidence suggesting that the Rust is what made Gecko rewrite succeed? Has there been any rewrite from scratch with some other programming language?

There were two previous attempts at parallelizing CSS layout in Firefox. Both were in C++. Both were abandoned after being unsuccessful. The Servo folks credited Rust's safety guarantees as the reason why they were able to be successful on the third attempt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6SSTRr2mFU

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#114

Post by menaerus »

steveklabnik wrote: post #113
menaerus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common sense what I said. It applies across the industry regardless of the programming languages used. On the contrary, where's the evidence suggesting that the Rust is what made Gecko rewrite succeed? Has there been any rewrite from scratch with some other programming language?

There were two previous attempts at parallelizing CSS layout in Firefox. Both were in C++. Both were abandoned after being unsuccessful. The Servo folks credited Rust's safety guarantees as the reason why they were able to be successful on the third attempt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6SSTRr2mFU

C++ attempts were from scratch or were based on interventions on the existing codebase?

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#115

Post by menaerus »

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #112
menaerus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common sense what I said. It applies across the industry regardless of the programming languages used. On the contrary, where's the evidence suggesting that the Rust is what made Gecko rewrite succeed? Has there been any rewrite from scratch with some other programming language?

No, I don't think there's any concrete evidence either way. I'm not trying to argue that it was Rust that made it succeed - I'm sure in reality it was some mixture of both, as well as other factors.

Having to work and learn through the codebase to make some substantial improvements often requires substantial effort and even rewiring the code architecture itself. That's enough of the evidence for me.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#116

Post by steveklabnik »

menaerus wrote: post #114
steveklabnik wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were two previous attempts at parallelizing CSS layout in Firefox. Both were in C++. Both were abandoned after being unsuccessful. The Servo folks credited Rust's safety guarantees as the reason why they were able to be successful on the third attempt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6SSTRr2mFU

C++ attempts were from scratch or were based on interventions on the existing codebase?

I mean, the Rust version was also put into the existing codebase, so it's not clear to me what distinction you're making.

But this presentation was made seven years ago, and the attempts it's talking about are even older, and I wasn't involved with them. So I don't know the answer to your question.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#117

Post by menaerus »

steveklabnik wrote: post #116
menaerus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ attempts were from scratch or were based on interventions on the existing codebase?

I mean, the Rust version was also put into the existing codebase, so it's not clear to me what distinction you're making. But this presentation was made seven years ago, and the attempts it's talking about are even older, and I wasn't involved with them. So I don't know the answer to your question.

The distinction is whether or not you're rewriting something from scratch carrying no baggage from the thwarts of the existing system or you keep organically growing existing code to meet the new requirements. The latter is usually much much harder. I hope it's clear now.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#118

Post by steveklabnik »

menaerus wrote: post #117
steveklabnik wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the Rust version was also put into the existing codebase, so it's not clear to me what distinction you're making. But this presentation was made seven years ago, and the attempts it's talking about are even older, and I wasn't involved with them. So I don't know the answer to your question.

The distinction is whether or not you're rewriting something from scratch carrying no baggage from the thwarts of the existing system or you keep organically growing existing code to meet the new requirements. The latter is usually much much harder. I hope it's clear now.

Understood. Yeah, I do not know.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#119

Post by jojobas »

KronisLV wrote: post #109
jojobas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your notion that browser-based apps are somehow bug-free is absurd. Skype on Linux, for one, keeps the microphone open after a call, forever. The issue has been known for more than 2 years. I'd say Electron adds no value with respect to fighting bugs other than containing the consequences in the browser sandbox.

> Your notion that browser-based apps are somehow bug-free is absurd. My notion is that more people are familiar with using the web stack, than any other alternative. Out of curiosity, I perused some local job boards: out of about 50 technical role ads that I looked through, 4 were embedded or desktop development, there were some DevOps and ML related roles in the middle, but the majority were web development. If tha…

This is an equivalent of "our town job board has mostly carpenter jobs and few metalworking one, so then we started building cars out of wood".

Yes it might be cheaper and easier to make a car out of wood but it will drive like crap.

Using tools not made for the job yields crappy results, who would have known.

Re: Mozilla's abandoned web engine 'Servo' project is getting a reboot

#120

Post by niutech »

jraph wrote: post #49
zerr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird is developed on top of Firefox.

Yep, but it seems to be a PITA. They endure whatever changes happen on Firefox UI, which are well tested on Firefox, but not on Thunderbird and Thunderbird has much more UI to manage than Firefox. See this interesting Thunderbird talk at FOSDEM on visual change that mentions this issue [1]. You also kinda have to fork Firefox to do this. It would be good to be able to #include and build the UI from there. XULRunner s…

> all alternative browsers that are not forks of Firefox that were based on Gecko have abandoned: they stopped being maintained, or switched to WebKit or Blink, which is a shame.

Which browsers? Pale Moon, Basilisk, K-Meleon are still being developed.

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