421–430 of 501 posts
Qs: wouldn’t an, potentially better, approach be to use an existing rendering engine, say WebKit or Gecko, and then build the rest on top first. And, then decide if the needs are met and then decide to rewrite or fork the rendering engine?
Disclaimer, I don’t have a deep understanding of browsers.
I really want to experience a happy medium between the barebones minimalism of Gemini and the insane free-for-all of the mainstream web. In my mind, there is no reason for every website to dictate its own layout and appearance when 99% of sites could be broken down into procedural elements that could be rendered however the client preferred. I recently bought a Kobo ereader, and the gorgeous, text-focused, crisp desi…
I agree. I often find that some formats are too simple and the rest are too complicated (for example, this is the case with the Ogg container format, and also with Gemini file format and Gemini protocol), and sometimes other problems.
> In my mind, there is no reason for every website to dictate its own layout and appearance when 99% of sites could be broken down into procedural elements that could be rendered however the client preferred.
I agree that too. Often I just disable CSS.
I think that ARIA might be able to help a bit, together with HTML. (This way, nonstandard form fields can still be displayed even if the styles are disabled, if those nonstandard form fields are using ARIA, which is something that I sometimes see.) (It would be better to just design it properly the first time, but that would be difficult when everyone else does not want to do it in a better way, although using a common accessibility feature such as ARIA seems more likely to me.) So, a client program can include a mode to display the document using HTML and ARIA instead of CSS.
Rendering just how the client preferred is also making it more portable across different screens, etc, and better accessibility, than using CSS and then having to make separate mobile version and those mess.
> it seems to me that mass adoption of css and Javascript in the majority of websites was a mistake,
I think you are right. I sometimes write web pages that do not use CSS and JavaScripts (although often I will just write plain text instead of HTML, anyways).
> building a browser seems to me like trying to play catch up to a system that will never have your interests at heart
There are some features that I would want to deliberately exclude (or implement in extensions instead of the core features), and some that may be helpful to be deliberately differently. (Actually, I would move many core features into extensions instead, and some features that would usually be implemented in extensions (such as request/response overriding) into core features. Flipping around many of these things might help a bit, too, I think, to allow more versatility for extensions, better security, and better user controls, etc.)
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At least make your own argument, don't ask ChatGPT to do it for you. ChatGPT is really stretching to make your point though, as you can see from the laughable use of the phrase "Another striking resemblance between browsers and operating systems" after just listing a bunch of web APIs that no one cares about. (WebVR? Get out of here...)
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"Writing a browser" (from scratch) at this point basically means you are implementing a type of portable operating-system-in-a-box (the web platform) and that it will be compatible with whatever Google decides to add to theirs. The browser is so comprehensive in functionality and APIs, and such a challenge to keep up with Google's constant churn of new features and total dominance, that not even Microsoft could do it…
> "Writing a browser" (from scratch) at this point basically means you are implementing a type of portable operating-system-in-a-box (the web platform) and that it will be compatible with whatever Google decides to add to theirs. I'll bite... why? Most websites follow HTML and ECMAScript. Why do you need to do anything Google does? Isn't the whole point of this project to decouple from what big tech companies do? The…
Because Google is following the old Microsoft playbook of "embrace/extend/extinguish". They throw shit at the WWW consortium partially to see what sticks, but also in the hopes that websites will adopt the shit, forcing other browsers to add the shit to be able to display those sites.
Google is incentivized to do this because, since nobody else can keep up with the shit-flinging, users switch to Chrome. Then Google gets everyone's data for free, further strengthening their monopoly.
That said, I fully support people trying to build new browsers.
Hi Joshua, My name is Peter Sherman. I wrote a non-HTML, non-CSS, non-JavaScript browser several years ago (in theory, it could be easily adapted to those standards by including code and hooks for the appropriate parsers and interpreters. (Software Engineering side-observation: Why aren't browsers delivered as independently functional component parts, that is, why are the codebases for most browsers that use a lot of…
Actually, independently component parts is what I think should be done, would be better, that you can exchange each part, add new parts, or wire them together differently, e.g. you can much more easily change some features in ways which are not as easily done, e.g. replace the TLS implementation with your own that allows non-TLS proxies, or to change some CSS commands, or add new HTML commands, without changing everything else too.
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> The browser is so comprehensive in functionality and APIs Not really. If you limit your scope by saying that you're building a hypertext document viewer , it suddenly becomes approachable. A lot of the functionality is all that PWA stuff no one asked for and no one is using for anything good anyway. WebSQL? IndexedDB? Service workers? WebGL? WebGPU? WebBluetooth? WebRTC? Just act like it all doesn't exist. 99% of a…
"A lot of the functionality is all that PWA stuff no one asked for and no one is using for anything good anyway" It is really hard to engage with your comment in a constructive way, if you start by insulting everthing on the web, that is not a simple document (with comments). So I get it, you don't like the web as a plattform for apps. And it surely is not perfect. But do you have a better plattform independent alter…
My main gripe with using the web stack for building apps is that, unlike proper GUI framework, your platform is not made out of the same kind of code that you're writing. For example, there's a number of predefined layout algorithms that you can choose from and then control some of their parameters, but you can't write your own layout algorithm. You can kinda draw your custom controls, but both and SVG are not without their own shortcomings compared to real GUI frameworks. A web browser is a glorified scriptable word processor so it's not surprising that it acts like one.
Yes, there are "paint worklets" and "layout worklets" as proposals. That kinda makes it better but still feels like an ugly workaround. The declarativeness of HTML and CSS, extremely awkward for building app-like UIs with, is also never going anywhere.
OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…
You shouldn't have to write this response on 'hacker' news, but good for you. Work on what you want. Some people do wood working, fix cars, or play video games. Others like coding. I have tons of partial projects I've started for various reasons, and enjoyed them all. Good luck and have fun. And, maybe your project does turn into something bigger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#The_creation_...
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> Yes society will survive. No, climate change does not mean that things are getting worse. Either you are insanely optimistic (to a point where it is actually ridiculous), or you lack information. You do realize that climate change is, right now, going to make entire parts of Earth unlivable (the most humid ones, around the equator), right? As in "human beings won't be able to survive outdoors on their own because i…
> Either you are insanely optimistic (to a point where it is actually ridiculous), or you lack information. Or, option #3, you've been on a diet consisting almost exclusively of negative news and have adopted a doomer mindset as a result. The world is actively combating and will fix climate change.
At this point, that's faith :-).
Look at the numbers: CO2 emissions are increasing every year. Climate change is happening faster than the models predicted. Biodiversity is dropping, we are living a mass extinction right now, it is an observed fact and not a prediction. Fossil fuels are not unlimited, we passed the peak of conventional oil production in 2008, the general peak is expected soon, same for LNG. We don't have any sustainable energy that can remotely replace fossil fuels.
The one thing that is pretty clear is that we must consume less. But we are not doing that, instead we are consuming more every year. Hiding behind some sort of "others will fix it, I have faith" Silicon Valley religion, or something.
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"A lot of the functionality is all that PWA stuff no one asked for and no one is using for anything good anyway" It is really hard to engage with your comment in a constructive way, if you start by insulting everthing on the web, that is not a simple document (with comments). So I get it, you don't like the web as a plattform for apps. And it surely is not perfect. But do you have a better plattform independent alter…
I despise cross-platform GUIs as a concept, but if you must make one, there's plenty of options usable from most languages. Java has Swing, C++ has Qt, there's things like Flutter and WxWidgets and a dozen different GUI libraries for Rust. Heck, you can even build GUIs in Python with tkinter. Every single one of these options is much better suited for an app than the web stack. My main gripe with using the web stack…
Of course you can - in javascript. What is stopping you? (except that you don't like it)
You can also ditch the DOM alltogether and only use the canvas/webgl and maybe your language of choice via emscripten and wasm, if you really cannot stand js/ts.
The web as a plattform is very, very powerful. The app you make, you can ship by simply sending a link. And people can just try it out without installing something and all quite save in a sandbox.
So none of your solutions are better suited than the web stack, if you intend to target the maximum audience with the minimum hazzle. You have to beat that, if you want to overcome the web.
Also, can you give me one example of a nice looking app in swing? Websites are optimized for enabling good UI and UX. Because the moment a user is confused - he is gone very quickly. And people can also customize their experience. I use dark reader and ublock.
HTML and everything around it is often a ugly chaotic mess, but a incredibly powerful one.