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Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

ladybird.org

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Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#361

Post by simonask »

fmbb wrote: post #356
muyuu wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's very odd that someone with no experience would take a big project like this and just jump to another language because he trusts the AI generated code of current models if it works it works i guess, but it seems mad to me on the surface

Why do you think the creator behind SerenityOS has no experience? I mean it’s not the most popular OS out there but he seems like a capable individual.

It's hard to articulate, but as someone who knows first hand, I just want to say that manic productivity is not the same as solid engineering.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#362

Post by steve1977 »

nicoburns wrote: post #86
abuyalip wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don’t buy this “safer more modern” mentality. Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. People need to learn how to use tools properly. If you ask me, Go is a better Rust. Rust is an ugly version of C++ with longer compile times and a band of zealous missionaries. I mean the keywords mut and fn very annoying to read just get rid of them or spell the f*n thing function.

> Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. The statistics from projects that have adopted Rust and measured the effect say otherwise. See https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move... for example.

This article is not really specifying if Rust is compared against "Modern C++" or "Old School C++". The only thing we can assume is that at least part of it is "Google C++".

Maybe we would see similar effects adopting Modern C++. Maybe not. The article doesn't tell us.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#364

Post by grey-area »

josephg wrote: post #95
patates wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coding assistants are also really great at porting from one language to the other I had a broken, one-off Perl script, a relic from the days when everyone thought Drupal was the future (long time ago). It was originally designed to migrate a site from an unmaintained internal CMS to Drupal. The CMS was ancient and it only ran in a VM for "look what we built a million years ago" purposes (I even had written permissi…

> 10/10 - would generate tens of thousands of lines of useless code again. Me too! A couple days ago I gave claude the JMAP spec and asked it to write a JMAP based webmail client in rust from scratch. And it did! It burned a mountain of tokens, and its got more than a few bugs. But now I've got my very own email client, powered by the stalwart email server. The rust code compiles into a 2mb wasm bundle that does ever…

Just curious, does it look anything like this library?

https://docs.rs/jmap-client/latest/jmap_client/

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#365

Post by geertj »

cardanome wrote: post #235
ramon156 wrote: post #38

I'm a long-time Rust fan and have no idea how to respond. I think I need a lot more info about this migration, especially since Ladybird devs have been very vocal about being "anti-rust" (I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype). I don't know if it's a good fit. Not because they're writing a browser engine in Rust (good), but because Ladybird praises CPP/Swift currently and have no idea what the contributor's…

> I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype Yeah that is the thing I struggle with. I am really happy for people falling in love with Rust. It is a amazing language when used for the right use case. The problem is that had my Rust adventures a few years ago and I am over the hype cycle and able to see both the advantages and disadvantages. Plus being generally older and hopefully wiser I don't tie my identity t…

> So sometimes when some Junior dev discovers Rust and they get really obnoxious with their evangelicalism it can be very off putting. Really not sure how to solve it. It is good when people get excited about a language. It just can be very annoying for everyone else sometimes.

This rings very true, and I've actually disadvantaged myself somewhat here. I was involved in projects that made very dubious decisions to rewrite large systems in Rust. This caused me to actively stay away from the language, and stick to C++, investing lots of time in overcoming its shortcomings.

Now years later, I started with Rust in a new project. And I must say, I like the language, I really like the tools, and I like the ecosystem. On some dimension I wish I would have done this sooner (but on the other hand, I think I have a better justification of "why Rust" now).

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#366

Post by VoxPelli »

nicoburns wrote: post #278
alabhyajindal wrote: post #268

> This is not becoming the main focus of the project. We will continue developing the engine in C++, and porting subsystems to Rust will be a sidetrack that runs for a long time. I don't like this bit. Wouldn't it be better to decide on a memory-safe language, and then commit to it by writing all new code in Rust, or whatever. This looks like doing double the work.

It doesn't have to all-or-nothing. Firefox has been a mixed C++ and Rust codebase for years now. It isn't like the code is written twice. The C++ components are written in C++, and the Rust components are written in Rust. I suspect that'll also be what happens here. And if the use of Rust is successful, then over time more components may switch over to Rust. But each component will only ever be in one language at a t…

Firefox was special in that Mozilla created Rust to build Servo and then backported parts of Servo to Firefox and ultimately stopped building Servo.

Thankfully Servo has picked up speed again and if one wants a Rust based browser engine what better choice than the one the language was built to enable?

https://servo.org/

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#367

Post by tehnub »

ikety wrote: post #263
echelon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust is the final language. Defect free. Immaculate types. Safe. Ergonomic. Beautiful to read. AI is going to be writing a lot of Rust. The final arguments of "rust is hard to write" are going to quiet down. This makes it even more accessible.

Why not go full functional programming at that point? If the main issue with FP has been accessibility, then it should really take off now.

I wouldn’t because idiomatic Haskell is way slower than idiomatic Rust.

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#368

Post by VoxPelli »

norman784 wrote: post #197
pjmlp wrote: post #69

All the best to them, however this feels like yah shaving instead of focusing into delivering a browser than can become an alternative to Safari/Chrome duopoly.

Javascript is a self contained sub system, if the public API stays the same, then they can rewrite as much as they want, also I suppose this engine now will attract new contributors that will want to contribute to Ladybird just because they enjoy working with Rust. Don't forget that the Rust ecosystem around browsers is growing, Firefox already uses it for their CSS engine[0], AFAIK Chrome JPEG XL implementation is w…

Not only is Firefox using it for their CSS engine but Mozilla created Rust to build Servo and sadly only the CSS engine and maybe some other parts is what they kept around when they offloaded Rust.

“the Rust ecosystem around browsers is growing” – in the beginning pretty much 100% of the ecosystem around Rust was browser oriented

Thankfully Servo is picking up speed again and is a great project to help support with some donations etc: https://servo.org/

Re: Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI

#370

Post by jibal »

muyuu wrote: post #330
ramon156 wrote: post #38

I'm a long-time Rust fan and have no idea how to respond. I think I need a lot more info about this migration, especially since Ladybird devs have been very vocal about being "anti-rust" (I guess more anti-hype, where Rust was the hype). I don't know if it's a good fit. Not because they're writing a browser engine in Rust (good), but because Ladybird praises CPP/Swift currently and have no idea what the contributor's…

it's very odd that someone with no experience would take a big project like this and just jump to another language because he trusts the AI generated code of current models if it works it works i guess, but it seems mad to me on the surface

Did you read the OP? No trust, only thorough verification.
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