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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

#91

Post by hutzlibu »

nmz wrote: post #32
sshine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the tl;dr of this article seems to be: > I do not expect ANYTHING to come from this project. I do not expect to finish this project. So... good luck with that. :)

Goes without saying, its a browser, browsers are never finished. unless you discarded html/js and started from scratch... but then you'd have no data for the browser and what would be the point of that.

"Goes without saying, its a browser, browsers are never finished. "

But they can be working enough, to be useful. Meaning they can display correctly the pages you want to see.

So the best independent effort of a working browser I know of, is ladybird. And Kling knows how to build browsers, so toying around with a browser from scratch on your own will be a learning experience. But I guess you might learn more, by contributing to a project that stands a real chance to become a working browser.

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

#92

Post by globular-toast »

soyasis wrote: post #53

On the political note of the article: yes, the world is fucked up and it is exhausting to only read fucked up news. I personally believe that disconnecting from reality and becoming 'apolitical' implies giving up on humanity; that is giving up on your kids, nephews and the children of your best friends. No need to change the world, a small change in your community is more than enough. Specially as coders, what we bui…

I agree, mostly. I decided years ago to stop listening to the news, but that was only after I decided to not have children. It seems wrong for breeders to stick their fingers in their ears.

I have given up on the world, as you put it. But other people's children is not my fault. I do as much as everyone else does to "do the right thing", but no more than that. I used to think about all these things, try to minimise my personal footprint and think about sustainability and future generations etc. But I lost hope. I was fighting the tide. Now I just try to make sure my footprint is not above average and try to be good to the people around me.

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

#93

Post by Const-me »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #85
ilaksh wrote: post #24

"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…

You're wrong about a few things. (1) A browser isn't an OS at all, it's a Javascript runtime and a constraint solver (to put all of the boxes in the right places per the CSS inputs). (2) Google doesn't constantly churn the web world anymore, they still do try, but it hasn't been effective for quite some time. (3) Microsoft was keeping up with web standards just fine, but they were falling behind in performance, and t…

> they were falling behind in performance

They were only falling behind in performance on google’s web pages such as youtube. Read that comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18697824

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

#94

Post by atlasduo »

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…

I wish more people gave a shot at browser implementations. You see a lot of comments that this in a herculean task, and maybe it is, but it's not _that_ bad.

You don't have to implement all of the functionality of modern web browsers. You don't need battery APIs, game controller APIs, USB, etc. Focus on what is important - HTML, CSS, JS.

Worst case scenario - you will learn something new.

Best of luck on this project!

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

#95

Post by d--b »

zem wrote: post #79
robertlagrant wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel cars are much worse than browsers in terms of screwing their buyers Feelings aside, why do you think this?

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...

That plus:

- Impossible to repair without going to the vendor.

- subscription for seat warmers and "full accelerating curve" (https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-su...)

- random feature disabling (https://www.wired.com/story/fight-right-repair-cars-turns-ug...)

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

#96

Post by phendrenad2 »

Const-me wrote: post #93
phendrenad2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong about a few things. (1) A browser isn't an OS at all, it's a Javascript runtime and a constraint solver (to put all of the boxes in the right places per the CSS inputs). (2) Google doesn't constantly churn the web world anymore, they still do try, but it hasn't been effective for quite some time. (3) Microsoft was keeping up with web standards just fine, but they were falling behind in performance, and t…

> they were falling behind in performance They were only falling behind in performance on google’s web pages such as youtube. Read that comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18697824

If a "hidden empty div" is all it takes to break your browser's performance, I'm sorry, that's just not impressive.

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

#97

Post by ilaksh »

davedx wrote: post #75
ilaksh wrote: post #24

"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…

Study the Microsoft and Firefox projects to see why it turns out that way.

The basic thing I am saying is that if you call it a web browser and use the same core protocols etc., you have a practically infinite (for an individual) set of requirements to implement and will never be truly compatible.

What ideas like Tersenet and systems like Gemini propose is similar to what you say, except even simpler. HTML and ECMAScript are quite complex and have a lot of challenging expectations as far as performance and flexibility.

The idea is to try to break things off in a clean way that is feasible to implement without having to worry about a fuzzy and ever-expanding definition of what you have to support.

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

#98

Post by Eggsellence »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #72
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…

> I get angry about not being able to do anything about anything. And this is my way of trying to do something about it. It's the best I can do. This attitude is gold, and it's what changes the whole world. What you said about the misery of "news" resonates with me. In psyops we call it "sapping". Propaganda designed to demoralise, dispirit and corrode resistance used to come from our enemies . The classic example wa…

[flagged]

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by nicoburns »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #41

Writing a browser means writing a rendering and layout engine. That's a pretty tall order, not that you can't do it. But there's so much you could do that would be more likely to be fruitful. Port Servo to Nyxt Browser. Fork WebKit or servo or gecko and pull out the invasive web standards that have been injected by the ad company over the last decade that hurt users. It's all work you're going to have to do anyway bu…

I maintain a web layout library that is designed to be integrated into other software:

https://github.com/DioxusLabs/taffy

It needs to be combined with a text layout engine (such as https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-text), and it doesn't support everything yet (notable features that are currently missing: "float", "display: inline-block", "box-sizing: content-box", "position: static"). But we have Block, Flexbox and CSS Grid support with more on the way.

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