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Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

servo.org

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Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#91

Post by tannhaeuser »

Dalewyn wrote: post #85
madeofpalk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a very bad idea for a single browser vendor to deliberately subvert standards process and attempt to steamroll the web with their own proprietary tech!

You're still not getting it. When there's only one browser to care about, it's easy to get it to support the latest and greatest standard. W3C comes out with HTML6? Not supporting that would be terrible marketing, especially if other then-irrelevant browsers adopt it.

> W3C comes out with HTML6?

W3C's hasn't come out with anything HTML for a long time now. What we're calling HTML5 is spec'd by a Google-financed group of individuals (but mostly Chrome devs) collaborating at github.com/whatwg.

The last WHATWG HTML revision W3C has put into recommendation status is WHATWG HTML review draft published January, 2020. Last year's review draft was rejected due to privacy concerns, and also due to long standing issues with HTML5's so-called outlining algorithm ie the spec's written interpretation of heading levels for landmarks in navigation as a left-over from back when Ian Hickson was editor which didn't meet with the reality of what assistive technologies are actually doing. Meanwhile, the WHATWG spec has been edited (by a long-term W3C efitor) but no new consensus for a new W3C HTML recommendation has been achieved [1].

[1]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#92

Post by [deleted] »

Waterluvian wrote: post #4

I’m not sure I understand the context. They began a replacement engine 7 years later to address shortcomings, and 3 years after that still aren’t sure if it’s actually better and worth switching over to? Now that I write this, I kind of get it. But I’ve only experienced this for weeks worth of work, not for years.

[deleted]

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#93

Post by di4na »

Rexogamer wrote: post #74
kelnos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PWAs failed in the marketplace and are essentially dead. Google pushed them because they were already on track for web dominance, and the shift toward native apps was a threat to that. These days Google still wants to control the web (and more or less does), but they also have a healthy app ecosystem, albeit only for Android. I'm sure it still bugs them to no end that they have zero control over the app experience on…

"PWAs are essentially dead"?!? They haven't replaced native apps for sure but I think it's a pretty major stretch to call them done and dusted

From a engineer mind share pov they are. Users don't use them. Engineers do not build them.

They are stillborn and i don't see a way out.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#94

Post by reitanqild »

charcircuit wrote: post #36
vlovich123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a while while Google had a minority and everyone was still targeting IE instead of the standard, they would detect that and take a different rendering path even if it meant preserving broken behavior. At the same time they tried to fix/improve the spec and wage a publicity campaign against Microsoft for not following standards. While that’s not necessarily a capability a smaller not well funded browser might have…

>you need to start greenfield like Chrome Chrome wasn't entirely greenfield. The rendering engine is a fork of webkit's.

Which was forked from KDE I think?

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#95

Post by capableweb »

mindwok wrote: post #11
linuxandrew wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla abandoned work on Servo in 2020 (source: https://tildes.net/~tech/ra8/i_am_a_mozilla_employee_amaa ) shortly after Layout 2020 came about. Servo was in limbo for some time before recently being handed over to the Linux Foundation, hence the time delay.

I feel like that would be helpful context at the top of this article, because before knowing this I was pretty confused why a project was publicly questioning a decision it made 3 years ago, whereas with that context it seems this was more a discovery exercise by the new maintainers.

The article is published in a blog for people working with/on servo and for people who are interested in servo already. It is not a "This is what servo is", "Announcing servo" or anything like that, it's a niche article on a niche blog for a niche project. It's perfectly fine to not lead with context that is obvious from the rest of the website.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#96

Post by pjmlp »

charcircuit wrote: post #62
linuxandrew wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google/Blink consistently pushes for bad things like EME, FLoC and Topics API. They have a very different vision of the web where users live in a corporate playground and complex browser engines which only a few large corps can manage. At this point what is making the web a better platform? The web has feature overload, even with features like Server Push which are seldom used. FWIW I think there are some exciting po…

>pushes for bad things like EME, FLoC and Topics API EME is better than browsers having to implement their own proprietary APIs for DRM. If EME didn't exist DRM would still be used by sites like Netflix. >FLoC and Topics API These are better for privacy than learning interests by tracking via third party cookies. These are moves to retain the positive uses of the web while increasing people's privacy. >At this point…

> WebGPU released recently and provided big speedups to GPU intensive use cases.

On the contrary.

WebGL was going to get OpenGL ES compute shaders, contributed by Intel three years ago. Google blocked the effort with the reasoning WebGPU compute was around the corner. Again three years ago!

Due to politics between browser vendors, we have now yet another shading language to learn, and because Rust is fashionable, naturally it moves away from classical shading languages into a more Rust like syntax.

It arrived six years too late, so it represents Vulkan, Metal, DirectX when they were released in their version 1.0.

Still it doesn't fix the issue that after 10 years of WebGL, there is no reasonable debugging story and no Web games that can match PlayStation 3 graphics.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#97

Post by pjmlp »

illiarian wrote: post #49
rektide wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like 18 months ago Safari launched a "look at us we are so great, we don't support these long list of web apis; isn't chrome evil" and Moz joined in like two days latter repeating the exact same claims in an obviously coordinated negativity-campaign. Web USB, web Bluetooth, web midi, ambient light sensor, bunch of other sensors. I'm sorry I really want to find the links & show this off more. It was the most boldfaced…

That's a lot of demagoguery mascarading as fact. What really happens is that Mozilla brings multiple well-argued objections (Safari, too) that span both technical and non-technical reasons, but Chrome just releases its half-baked non-standards and calls it a day.

Basically the ultimate goal is that Chrome turns into a kernel agnostic version of ChromeOS.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#98

Post by pjmlp »

kelnos wrote: post #54
waboremo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to app store creation, Apple and Google were the same regarding the web as a legitimate platform. After it was released, only really Google was pushing for it. Hence the creation of Progressive Web Apps, thanks to Alex Russell et al at Google.

PWAs failed in the marketplace and are essentially dead. Google pushed them because they were already on track for web dominance, and the shift toward native apps was a threat to that. These days Google still wants to control the web (and more or less does), but they also have a healthy app ecosystem, albeit only for Android. I'm sure it still bugs them to no end that they have zero control over the app experience on…

On the contrary, for forms over data they are more than alive.

At work we only target mobile devices via the Web.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#99

Post by pjmlp »

di4na wrote: post #93
Rexogamer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"PWAs are essentially dead"?!? They haven't replaced native apps for sure but I think it's a pretty major stretch to call them done and dusted

From a engineer mind share pov they are. Users don't use them. Engineers do not build them. They are stillborn and i don't see a way out.

Engineers build them for big corps and ecommerce sites.

The respective users, specially the corporate ones, have no alternative other than using them.

Re: Layout 2013 and Layout 2020

#100

Post by MBCook »

kelnos wrote: post #57
MBCook wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very useful comment. I knew Servo was part of Mozilla, but was confused by the article. It said 2013 was in use, but listed multiple major issues with it that I would think would prevent FF from being acceptable by any normal person. Knowing it was a project and not a part of the current FF engine (as I had assumed) is the context I was missing. Thank you. I don’t follow FF development closely enough to kno…

Also note that Servo is no longer a part of Mozilla. Servo's development now has nothing to do with Firefox's needs or roadmap. They're completely independent and are chasing their own goals.

I did see that, but forgot to mention it above. You’re right that’s important info too.
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