91–100 of 134 posts
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"- Firefox's html parser is written in Java and converted to C++ at build time." This is surprising. Is it really true in the sense that the code that parses the HTML in a regular Firefox install was autoconverted when it was built?
Yep: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/parser/html/jav... And more info: https://about.validator.nu/htmlparser/
An (early) alternative spec/engine would be a Figma-compatible vector graphics spec[2] and its rendering engine[3]. It is called VeryGoodGraphics[1].
[1] https://verygoodgraphics.com/, the website is built with its own technology (wasm version).
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If we exclude over 75 with no interest in using it (and no use case for it in their environmnent/culture), and under 10, we're pretty close to covering all the rest. And even the 60% is some hand wavy estimate about internet reach, about people using the internet frequently. More people use the internet than that, some transparently through some smartphone app or basic feature phone, which almost everybody has even i…
Lol at under 10 and over 75 having no interest. I know avid users … content creators… in both categories.
Everybody knows avid users at 75+ or 10-, you haven't discovered something knew. But there are whole countries/areas/cultures where e.g. the majority of 75+ have no internet use, and no interest in getting any. You know, in the world, not in the US.
> [bunch of things that are only relevant to an application platform]
Yeah you really don't need any of this for a web browser to be usable for its intended purpose.
This makes writing a compiler or writing an OS kernel look like child's play.
A compiler by itself is surprisingly easy, especially if you read Abdulaziz Ghuloum's or Jeremy Siek's tutorials. Making it competitive with state-of-the-art compilers like Clang or HotSpot is difficult, but this is true for every kind of software.
> So You Want To Build A Browser Engine The only correct answer is, "don't". I mean, if you want to build a toy browser engine for a CS class or fun or something, then sure. But the idea that "you want to build an engine that’s competitive with Chromium" is, quite simply, nonsensical. If you want your own browser engine, you're going to fork Chromium or Gecko (Firefox). I mean, even Microsoft gave up on maintaining i…
Even Chromium started with WebKit which itself was a fork. This doesn't mean you shouldn't be interested in browser dev but you also don't have to do a totally clean sheet implementation.
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That's only because it was the "Chrome" (i.e. the dominant browser). Look at what happened when Microsoft eventually tried to catch up with Chrome - they gave up.
> Look at what happened when Microsoft eventually tried to catch up with Chrome - they gave up. That wasn't because they weren't up to the job. It's because Google was using Microsoft's playbook against them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18697824 > I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other bro…
interesting how oldpersonintx's comment "thinly-veiled passive-aggressive swipe at Ladybird" was dead'd here when that accurately reflects the authors comments (as roc-robert o'callahan) here on LWN.net: https://lwn.net/Articles/977625/
Really being competitive with Chrome is not enough because that still doesn't give anyone any reason to use your browser over Chrome. You need to actually provide some end-user benifit that Chrome doesn't (and ideally won't) and that is more important than being competitiv with Chrome on the features Google wants to push. This is where Mozilla really dropped the ball. 15 years of Chrome lighting fire under their ass and zero innovation in the way we browse the web. Well, less than zero when you consider all the useful extension broken by browser changes over the years.
Meanwhile Mozilla keeps gaslighting us how they care about privacy while trying numerous ways to integrate ads in the browser.
... yeah I see why someone would rather create a browser from scratch than support Mozilla.
I've tried doing it by embedding webkit which is much more doable but I've found that many sites I use don't work my embedded webkit.
So now I think if I want to make my own browser it would be better start making my own versions of those sites first and make sure those are good and popular. At which point I'll just make native clients for them and forget about html/js/css.