6 ms·

We are lucky it's even a duopoly. All it would take is the demise of Firefox, and the entire web would be defined entirely by the implementation of Chrome/Chrom

We are lucky it's even a duopoly. All it would take is the demise of Firefox, and the entire web would be defined entirely by the implementation of Chrome/Chromium. Servo is very welcome; a third leg to the stool makes real diversity possible again.

whizzter 11mo ago
Ladybird seems to be progressing at an impressive pace also, time will tell however if their choice of C++ will be a big problem or if modern ways of doing things are safe enough.
- throwaway48476 11mo ago
  They chose c++ because the web spec implies object oriented design.
  - IshKebab 11mo ago
    No they didn't. It's C++ because the primary author was most familiar with C++ and only allowed C++ in SerenityOS. https://ladybird.org/#:~:text=The%20choice%20of%20language%20was,of%20modern%20C%2B%2B%20to%20maintain. https://ladybird.org/#:~:text=The%20choice%20of%20language%2...
    - throwaway48476 11mo ago
      That was the answer I remember Andreas give in a update video to answer the "why not rust" question.
      - IshKebab 11mo ago
        That doesn't really make sense to me either. Even if WebIDL is inheritance based, that is going to be processed automatically so you can easily use codegen to make the resulting interface nice in Rust, in a way that would be relatively difficult if you were hand-writing it.
- lawn 11mo ago
  They're announced they want to move to Swift to combat some of this.
  - whizzter 11mo ago
    Yep, but there was another post mentioning half a million lines of C++ code so far. While the C++ interop in Swift seems sane with Clang being embedded I wonder how much time/energy they will have to actually move significant parts if it's so large already.
- tredre3 11mo ago
  Their choice is actually Swift and by the time there's a stable release all the C++ code is intended to have been replaced. Time will tell if that will be a big problem or if more mainstream ways of doing things are better for a project intended to run everywhere!
  - norman784 11mo ago
    I remember they mentioning Swift a few months ago, but currently I don’t see any swift in their github repo, didn’t checked other branches besides main.
  - hypeatei 11mo ago
    > all the C++ code is intended to have been replaced. That is not their goal at all, I don't where you heard that. Swift is currently stalled due to some blockers listed on their issue tracker, but any usage of it will be in safety-critical areas first and not a complete rewrite of existing code.
- glenstein 11mo ago
  Very excited for Ladybird and Servo. I wonder if a good thing that may emerge from this era of LLM code-support capabilities is that its more feasible to support alternative browser codebases even as they get into the multi-million lines of code.
bastawhiz 11mo ago
Don't forget that pretty much 100% of iOS users and a nontrivial percentage of Mac users are on Webkit/Safari. That's not to say Safari is really leading the pack on anything at all, but Google also hasn't led Apple by the nose on pretty much anything on the web in recent years.
- jorvi 11mo ago
  Yup, the split is really Blink+WebKit. Gecko marketshare is tiny these days. What's interesting is seeing a few non-Apple WebKit browsers pop up, like Orion (Kagi) and Epiphany. Call me cynical, but I don't see Ladybird or Servo do much beyond making a splash. Browser engines take an incredible amount of dev hours to maintain. Ladybird is hot now, but what about in a decade? Hype doesn't last that long and at that point the money and a chunk of the dev interest will have dried up. Blink and WebKit both have massive corporations championing them, so those engines do not run that risk.
  - nicoburns 11mo ago
    > Blink and WebKit both have massive corporations championing them, so those engines do not run that risk. There's always risk. IE/Edge also had a massive corporation championing it, until it didn't. The US DOJ also appears to be considering actively prevent Google from backing Chrome. Which could also do for Firefox given that it's revenue comes from the same source. No doubt that wouldn't completely kill those engine given our reliance on them, but in those kind of circumstances we might welcome the existence of some simpler engines that are cheaper/easier to maintain.
    - herewulf 11mo ago
      I don't see the current US DoJ doing anything that harms Big Business and doesn't cater to the petulant whims of the current Presidential Administration.
      - nicoburns 11mo ago
        Plenty of the petulant whims of the current Presidential Administration are harmful to big business.

whizzter 11mo ago

Ladybird seems to be progressing at an impressive pace also, time will tell however if their choice of C++ will be a big problem or if modern ways of doing things are safe enough.

throwaway48476 11mo ago
They chose c++ because the web spec implies object oriented design.
- IshKebab 11mo ago
  No they didn't. It's C++ because the primary author was most familiar with C++ and only allowed C++ in SerenityOS. https://ladybird.org/#:~:text=The%20choice%20of%20language%20was,of%20modern%20C%2B%2B%20to%20maintain. https://ladybird.org/#:~:text=The%20choice%20of%20language%2...
  - throwaway48476 11mo ago
    That was the answer I remember Andreas give in a update video to answer the "why not rust" question.
    - IshKebab 11mo ago
      That doesn't really make sense to me either. Even if WebIDL is inheritance based, that is going to be processed automatically so you can easily use codegen to make the resulting interface nice in Rust, in a way that would be relatively difficult if you were hand-writing it.
lawn 11mo ago
They're announced they want to move to Swift to combat some of this.
- whizzter 11mo ago
  Yep, but there was another post mentioning half a million lines of C++ code so far. While the C++ interop in Swift seems sane with Clang being embedded I wonder how much time/energy they will have to actually move significant parts if it's so large already.
tredre3 11mo ago
Their choice is actually Swift and by the time there's a stable release all the C++ code is intended to have been replaced. Time will tell if that will be a big problem or if more mainstream ways of doing things are better for a project intended to run everywhere!
- norman784 11mo ago
  I remember they mentioning Swift a few months ago, but currently I don’t see any swift in their github repo, didn’t checked other branches besides main.
- hypeatei 11mo ago
  > all the C++ code is intended to have been replaced. That is not their goal at all, I don't where you heard that. Swift is currently stalled due to some blockers listed on their issue tracker, but any usage of it will be in safety-critical areas first and not a complete rewrite of existing code.
glenstein 11mo ago
Very excited for Ladybird and Servo. I wonder if a good thing that may emerge from this era of LLM code-support capabilities is that its more feasible to support alternative browser codebases even as they get into the multi-million lines of code.

bastawhiz 11mo ago

Don't forget that pretty much 100% of iOS users and a nontrivial percentage of Mac users are on Webkit/Safari. That's not to say Safari is really leading the pack on anything at all, but Google also hasn't led Apple by the nose on pretty much anything on the web in recent years.

jorvi 11mo ago
Yup, the split is really Blink+WebKit. Gecko marketshare is tiny these days. What's interesting is seeing a few non-Apple WebKit browsers pop up, like Orion (Kagi) and Epiphany. Call me cynical, but I don't see Ladybird or Servo do much beyond making a splash. Browser engines take an incredible amount of dev hours to maintain. Ladybird is hot now, but what about in a decade? Hype doesn't last that long and at that point the money and a chunk of the dev interest will have dried up. Blink and WebKit both have massive corporations championing them, so those engines do not run that risk.
- nicoburns 11mo ago
  > Blink and WebKit both have massive corporations championing them, so those engines do not run that risk. There's always risk. IE/Edge also had a massive corporation championing it, until it didn't. The US DOJ also appears to be considering actively prevent Google from backing Chrome. Which could also do for Firefox given that it's revenue comes from the same source. No doubt that wouldn't completely kill those engine given our reliance on them, but in those kind of circumstances we might welcome the existence of some simpler engines that are cheaper/easier to maintain.
  - herewulf 11mo ago
    I don't see the current US DoJ doing anything that harms Big Business and doesn't cater to the petulant whims of the current Presidential Administration.
    - nicoburns 11mo ago
      Plenty of the petulant whims of the current Presidential Administration are harmful to big business.