Comment by gjsman-1000
2 years ago
Then build your own browser in Rust, start contributing to Servo, and who cares when a volunteer writes a browser in any language?
Write a browser in COBOL for all I care. If it’s open source, it’s still a gift.
2 years ago
Then build your own browser in Rust, start contributing to Servo, and who cares when a volunteer writes a browser in any language?
Write a browser in COBOL for all I care. If it’s open source, it’s still a gift.
Absolutely not.
I don't know Rust and I think it is worse than C++ in many ways.
This is a false dichotomy, they don't have to switch language mid-course.
I am very confused by your message. I know both Rust and C++ and think it’s an improvement in many ways. Why do you you think it’s worse without using the language?
I don't use it, it does not mean that I know nothing about it.
I know enough.
Rust is extremely anti-ergonomic for me, and too complex, just as bad or worse than C++ in that regard.
1 reply →
> start contributing to Servo
Servo as a browser is (sort of) dead, though webrender still lives.
I remember when (back when the icon was a doge) it had an actual UI and could be used as a real web browser... that's all been stripped out now.
https://book.servo.org/:
> Work is still ongoing to make Servo consumable as a webview library, so for now, the only supported way to use Servo is via servoshell, our winit- and egui-based example browser.
A shame, really, since the Servo project was the source of some of the best macOS Cocoa/AppKit bindings for Rust.
Servo was never usable as a "real browser", and it's been revived since last year by Igalia. Looks like you should refresh your view on the project overall.
> Servo was never usable as a "real browser"
I had a 2018 (or 2017?) build on my Mac that was a native app using Cocoa/AppKit, which had a URL bar and could do most things in a functional capacity (like using Google services). AFAIK I tried a newer build back in 2020 or 2021 which had stripped out all of the browser chrome (like URL bar). Maybe they had intended to add it back in the future, but didn't get to do that before, you know, the layoff.
Servo the project was never revived as it was originally; the Servo name is being reused for what is actually a continuation of just the webrender project, which was part of the original Servo project, but is nonetheless much more limited in scope. I know it's confusing. Servo was once going to be a browser plus engine, and now it's just the engine.
Of course, officially, Servo has always only been a "research project" to "rethink the browser at every level of the technology stack", which primarily meant "layout engine", but then again, they did do such things as creating their own bindings to macOS Cocoa and AppKit which has no place in a layout engine, just to create, you know, a browser that demonstrates the engine. The browser that used the engine was part of the project.
Nowadays, the new Servo does have a demo/example project, but it's not meant for end use like the original Servo browser would have been. It just uses egui and all the other parts of the original Servo project have been essentially deprecated in favor of the new one, which is just webrender.
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> who cares when a volunteer writes a browser in any language?
All the people that replied with something akin to "Why is this written in C++" when Ladybird was initially announced, which probably influenced the decistion to switch to Swift.
> If it’s open source, it’s still a gift.
I would be careful with this thought. Open source is being used a marketing in disguise more often than not, especially here