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I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

adayinthelifeof.nl

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Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#441

Post by JohnFen »

fragmede wrote: post #354
intelVISA wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unfortunately large subset of too-comfortable tech workers have decreed the right way is to: never reinvent the wheel, always import, and avoid 'the hard stuff'. The sad bit? They're well compensated for this learned inability, so arguably they made the truly smart choice here. To the blessed few who reject this apathy and continue building new innovations? I salute you o7

An unfortunately large subset of tech workers have decreed the right way is to always reinvent the wheel, never import, and avoid 'reading documentation'. The worst bit? They're very well compensated for it, so arguably they made the true smart choice here. To the blessed few who reject NIH syndrome and use existing solutions? I salute you!

Both extremes are, of course, faulty.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#442

Post by grishka »

hutzlibu wrote: post #430
grishka wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"but you can't write your own layout algorithm." 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 j…

> Of course you can - in javascript. What is stopping you? (except that you don't like it)

If you mean by setting `position: absolute` and then using left/top/right/bottom to position your element, that won't work. You can't plug your code into the browser's layout dispatching mechanism to correctly react to size changes, reflows and all that. You can do that in any native UI framework.

> The app you make, you can ship by simply sending a link.

Depends on what it does. If it needs to store data locally and/or work with files for example, doing that on a website that runs in a browser is a pain in the ass both for the developer and the user. Last time I checked, if you want to generate a file for the user to save, you have to encode it into base64 and "open" it as a data: URI. Isn't that utterly bonkers?

> Also, can you give me one example of a nice looking app in swing?

IntelliJ IDEs.

> Websites are optimized for enabling good UI and UX.

Is that the reason there's so much whitespace everywhere these days? Is that also why all controls are so confusing that you sometimes have to try interacting with them to understand what they do?

> Because the moment a user is confused - he is gone very quickly.

Not everyone's goal is to simply have as many users as possible.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#443

Post by vGPU »

astrobe_ wrote: post #301
jaytaph wrote: post #59

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…

To me the logical conclusion of what you write is not to write yet-another-web-browser, because browsers are rotten to the core by terrible protocol designs, terrible specifications, politics, greed etc. Browsers did not spontaneously start to degrade, it's what the key actors at different times did that made it happen. The only hope, IMO, is to build something much more sane that cannot be abused. Something like Gop…

The problem with gopher, Gemini, etc is a lack of people using the service. The point of a browser is to browse. What are you going to browse if there is nobody creating content? And vice versa, most people won’t put large amounts of time and effort into creating content nobody will see.

Gopher appears to have declined some 20% in content between 2021 and 2022.

I believe I’ve taken a peek at Gemini and there wasn’t much to do either.

The same problem exists for zeronet, i2p, and freenet, which is now apparently two or three separate projects?

Mastodon had a big jump in users when musk bought twitter, which tapered off significantly. They had another, smaller, jump with the Reddit fiasco. Which also tapered off.

But I guess that’s just me rehashing what you said about reaching critical mass.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#444

Post by zzo38computer »

unethical_ban wrote: post #420
spc476 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini can, in fact, serve up images, audio and even video. The specification disallows inline display of such types, but it can serve them fine.

Ah. I misspoke, but my assertion is the same - the lack of inline display is a hamper.

I prefer the lack of inline display; I would rather it not display the pictures inline in the document anyways. However, that is something that the client does anyways, rather than the server. (Also, I think it does allow inline display if the picture and the document linking to it are both local files (or are both inside of a ZIP archive which is a local file), although even then it should have the option for the user to disable them.)

(Furthermore, it seem to me that Gemini is not a very good protocol for serving a video file anyways, because it does not have Range requests and stuff like that.)

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#445

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #268
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #28

When I got fed up with it, I stopped using a browser.^1 Never looked back. 1. Of the advertising-supported, graphical variety. We'll likely always have to use advertising-supported browsers for some things.^2 But certainly not all, or even most, things. 2. It would be really cool if this sad state of affairs changed before I'm dead, but I have no expectations. I would love to be able to use something "like" an API fo…

What are you using for Web access, if you don't mind?

I access the web through the internet, the same as I have done since 1993. I use software that can make TCP connections, send HTTP requests and receive HTTP responses.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#446

Post by carapace »

Thiez wrote: post #416
carapace wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL started when RMS wanted to fix his printer and Xerox said "No."

So are printer drivers GPL licensed these days or did the GPL fail?

Speaking as a GPL/"Free" software partisan, we failed. Although I don't like it, I think it's pretty clear. Most people have no idea what the GPL is, even most people who have heard of it don't seem to understand what it was trying to accomplish.

The farmers fighting for the "right to repair" their own tractors are the front of the battle now.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#447

Post by thealig »

jwr wrote: post #252
marginalia_nu wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore the noise. So much crab mentality on HN sometimes. If even half the time spent telling people that their project is pointless waste of time was spent doing something constructive instead, the world would have a lot more cool and interesting projects in it. Better to fail at something bold and ambitious than not even try at all.

This! Making >> Not Making, always. You make, you learn, perhaps one day you will make something better, perhaps not — but at least you've been building something. Ignore the armchair critics, criticizing is so much easier than building.

it might be easier, but that doesn't mean all criticism should be ignored.

In the spirit of cliched reductive "feel good" statements of this whole comment section, ignoring criticism is also easier than building something that ends up to be extremely subpar.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#449

Post by jjav »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #313
rileymat2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it strikes me a bit like, this will be hyperbole, complaining about forbidding slavery reduces freedom because you are not allowed to have slaves.

The difference is that nobody is harmed in the scenario where someone makes a closed source product with permissively licensed code. The original project is still there and still just as usable. Everyone still has the same freedoms as they did previously.

> The difference is that nobody is harmed in the scenario where someone makes a closed source product with permissively licensed code.

This is not true. What is harmed (and has effectively been destroyed) is the market to make money from selling libraries.

Many might be too young to remember, but it used to be that one could make a nice living selling libraries to companies.

In 1990 (just to pick a year) when BigCo Inc was developing a software project and needed library foo, they generally had two choices: build it internally or purchase one for money from a third party. This meant there was a nice market for small software houses to sell all kinds of libraries to BigCo.

Imagine for a moment a world where all open source is GPL. BigCo wouldn't touch the GPL libraries so they still either build or buy and we (developers) can continue to make money from our work.

Unfortunately it is no longer possible to make money from libraries because anything BigCo wants can be had for free in a BSD/MIT license so they get to take all the volunteer work, profit from it and give nothing back.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#450

Post by dredmorbius »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #445
dredmorbius wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you using for Web access, if you don't mind?

I access the web through the internet, the same as I have done since 1993. I use software that can make TCP connections, send HTTP requests and receive HTTP responses.

Care to share specific details?

Curl? wget? netcat? Terminal-mode browser?

(I use all of the above myself. Many websites ... behave poorly with them, though they can still be useful.)

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