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Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

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Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#31

Post by zija »

twen_ty wrote: post #26
diggan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of but also not. Tauri uses the default on the platform it runs on, this zig-webui project seems to be able to use every major browser and every major platform. For example, Firefox, Chrome and Edge all seem to be available for Windows, Linux and macOS in zig-webui, while Tauri would use a specific engine for a specific platform (by default at least).

Tauri can use a separate browser runtime if required. The use default is a space saving mechanism.

They are working on servo implementation, but it's long time to go.

Tauri has problem on Linux, webkit2gtk has lower performance etc. I know I have problems with three.js, others with svg

Additionaly communication speed between backend and frontend is bottleneck (serialisation to string) and you must use custom protocols to effectively communicate/send large data, zero copy binary protocol isn't possible at the moment

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#33

Post by lolinder »

Yaina wrote: post #12

Is it just me or does their logo look very similar to the Waterfox logo?

Looks like it is—they started out with the same color scheme just without the splashes [0], then changed the colors when someone recognized it. From the thread it sounds like an honest mistake (though one that probably warranted stronger corrective action than just changing the colors). They seem to have assumed that everything on icons8 [1] was up for grabs, when in fact a lot of trademarks are on there.

[0] https://github.com/webui-dev/webui/issues/100#issuecomment-1...

[1] https://icons8.com/

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#34

Post by Xeamek »

cuu508 wrote: post #28
Xeamek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synthetic benchmarks for some algorithms have little to do with actual performance of real life applications

What method do you propose to compare the performance of different programming languages?

While still far from perfect, benchmarks comparing actual, practical usage, like the ammount of request served by webservers for example, are much better indicators imo.

https://web-frameworks-benchmark.netlify.app/result

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#35

Post by lolinder »

troupo wrote: post #3

Offtopic, but: why do people insist that Edge is a meaningfully different browser from Chrome? I'm not even going to ask about the table at the end that lists that it supports exactly two different browsers while listing 10.

In this case it's relevant because it means that your app will run on Windows even if the user hasn't installed anything else, since it can just pick up Edge.

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#36

Post by 38 »

sph wrote: post #2

Off topic rant: can anyone explain why the syntax highlighting of Zig on Github turns every single word brown ? I know they incorporated tree sitter, and for some reason the default syntax rules really dislike coloring identifiers in black. Look at the code example in this project README or its source. For a long time something bugged me about the language whenever I glanced at it, and it's all because Github and its…

yeah its awful. I fixed like this:

    /*
    ==userstyle==
    @name GitHub
    @namespace 3052
    @version 2023.10.27
    ==/userstyle==
    */
    @-moz-document domain("github.com") {
       .pl-v {
          color: var(--color-fg-default)
       }
    }

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#37

Post by d3w4s9 »

troupo wrote: post #17
austin-cheney wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how you come to this conclusion. JS and the DOM are fast. Aside from arithmetic JS is just as fast as Java now and only 2-4x slower than C++. The two big limitations from a pure processing perspective are the garbage collector and massive repaints of large data on large layouts.

> I am not sure how you come to this conclusion. By knowing and working with more technologies than just web tech. "The most the most powerful layouting system and rendering engine" struggles to render even a few dozen elements on screen without junk, tearing and consuming as many resources as a mid-sized game. > JS and the DOM are fast. DOM is slow as molasses. There's a reason why all frameworks are going to great…

You comment shows that you have no practical knowledge of the web ecosystem, and everything you know about it comes from all the blog articles that contributes nothing that's useful in real world use. The reality is that web is fast enough (even with all the tweaks and different approaches of frameworks, libraries etc), and it is the first choice for building a new cross-platform product and for migrating legacy projects. It makes all the business sense as well. Your pedantic arguments are not going to reverse that trend.

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#38

Post by troupo »

austin-cheney wrote: post #27
troupo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure how you come to this conclusion. By knowing and working with more technologies than just web tech. "The most the most powerful layouting system and rendering engine" struggles to render even a few dozen elements on screen without junk, tearing and consuming as many resources as a mid-sized game. > JS and the DOM are fast. DOM is slow as molasses. There's a reason why all frameworks are going to great…

Please, don't guess at performance. My biggest learning about performance is that developers don't know how to measure it. The training is absent, the effort is too great, and then objectivity just isn't there. So, they guess, which typically just means making things up to qualify an unfounded assumption. Guessing at performance is wrong more than 80% of the time and when it is wrong there a decent chance it is wrong…

> Please, don't guess at performance.

I don't.

> My biggest learning about performance is that developers don't know how to measure it.

So have you measured it and compared it to anything else? Judging by the fact that you think that "JS is fast" has something to do with rendering and layout, my guess is that you haven't.

> The DOM is an in-memory object accessed via a standard API.

This has nothing to do with rendering, layout, and doesn't make it fast (compared to other ways of doing UIs) in the general case.

> string parsing mechanisms, like query selectors, is several times faster than it used to be.

Again. This has literally nothing to do with either layout or rendering.

> To run your own tests see this micro-benchmark test:

I said it: "A few billion dollars of development and hundreds of thousands of man-hours have optimized it beyond any reasonable expectations, but it's still unbelievably slow because of many architectural decisions rooted back in the 90s."

> To run your own tests see this micro-benchmark test: https://jsbench.github.io/#b39045cacae8d8c4a3ec044e538533dc

Oh wow, you can select elements quickly. What does this have to do with the actual performance of things that matter? Or with the rest of your claim about rendering and layout?

It's funny that you claim something about people guessing, and then use and talk about things that are completely irrelevant to your claims.

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#39

Post by d3w4s9 »

Xeamek wrote: post #21
austin-cheney wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This has been the case for at least the last 5 years. https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...

Synthetic benchmarks for some algorithms have little to do with actual performance of real life applications

Yeah everyone says that and stops there which is absolutely useless. Benchmarks are at least objective ways to measure something. And there are no "correct" benchmarks. Unless you have better metrics or another way to prove things, please stop repeating these meaningless words

Re: Web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend

#40

Post by oldpersonintx »

pjmlp wrote: post #14
austin-cheney wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how you come to this conclusion. JS and the DOM are fast. Aside from arithmetic JS is just as fast as Java now and only 2-4x slower than C++. The two big limitations from a pure processing perspective are the garbage collector and massive repaints of large data on large layouts.

As fast as Java?!? Better tell Google to dump Android and focus on ChromeOS then.

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