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Software developer Drew DeVault has written a post at his blog about the reckless, infinite scope of today's web browsers. His conclusion is that, given decades of feature creep, it is now impossible to build a new web browser due to the obscene complexity of the web.
I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser. The complexity of the web is obscene. The creation of a new web browser would be comparable in effort to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project.
It is impossible to:
- Implement the web correctly
- Implement the web securely
- Implement the web at all
Starting a bespoke browser engine with the intention of competing with Google or Mozilla is a fool's errand. The last serious attempt to make a new browser, Servo, has become one part incubator for Firefox refactoring, one part playground for bored Mozilla engineers to mess with technology no one wants, and zero parts viable modern web browser. But WebVR is cool, right? Right?
The consequences of this are obvious. Browsers are the most expensive piece of software a typical consumer computer runs. They're infamous for using all of your RAM, pinning CPU and I/O, draining your battery, etc. Web browsers are responsible for more than 8,000 CVEs.3
The browser duopoly of Firefox and Chrome/Chromium has clearly harmed the World-Wide Web. However, a closer look at the membership of the W3C committes also reveals representation by classic villains which, perhaps coincidentally, showed up around the time the problems noted by Drew began to grow.
Previously:
An Open Letter to Web Developers (2020)
Google Now Bans Some Linux Web Browsers from their Services (2019)
HTML is the Web (2019)
The Future of Browsers (2019)
One Year Since the W3C Sold Out the Web with EME (2018)
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday March 25 2020, @03:24AM (4 children)
Which non-JavaScript high-level languages are most useful to write a chat client or another similar application that targets all five client platforms?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday March 25 2020, @03:48AM
But I'm pretty sure C would work.
*Runs off to *check**
Oh yeah, it definitely works. http://www.bitchx.com/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2020, @01:06PM (2 children)
Basically all of them. It's 2020. Most languages can either be directly run or can be compiled to run on all major platforms. Same is true for many GUI toolkits and other useful APIs and frameworks.
The argument used to be that you couldn't respect the look and feel of the platform. The web said "FUCK THAT! We need to hire expensive media designers so we can force developers into using a viewing guideline DSL as a pixel perfect DSL", so anyone continuing to use the look-and-feel argument as a reason to rewrite an application for each platform is just bullshitting you.
Client-server chat programs are things freshman write near the end of the first year, at least that's what we did in my Intro To CS 3 class (C++) in 2006. (FYI: C++ is not a good language for general application development due to its high bug rate and complexity.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2020, @07:15AM (1 child)
> FYI: C++ is not a good language for general application development due to its high bug rate and complexity.
Compared to C it's a godsend. C is nice and all but it's way too effective footgun for complex software.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:02AM
Well some of the less obvious features can be footguns. But also opportunities.
Complex software obviously is tricky because it has excessive number of failure points. But if you build it from less complex parts, each of the parts shrinks to the point that they can be reasonably tested and audited. In theory at least.
Keeping it as simple as possible makes it easier to audit.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?