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WebKit is the only open source project I've ever needed to dig into which immediately signaled onerous complexity, and did not disappoint on that instinct until
by fapjacks 8y ago
WebKit is the only open source project I've ever needed to dig into which immediately signaled onerous complexity, and did not disappoint on that instinct until I gave up. You, too, can have this experience, if you really want. Take a weekend, if you've been programming for a couple decades -- more, way more, if you haven't -- and just try to build WebKit. Go to the repository, follow the instructions, and just try to build the project.
That anybody would -- or could -- dig in, tear it apart, and try to make something better... That is impressive and I salute you.
Edited to add: I am however only interested in using open source applications on Linux, so I'm out on this one, unfortunately. That's not strictly true -- for example, I use ST3 as my daily driver -- but I've got to see a substantial value proposition to weight my decision towards becoming a user. Still, impressive nonetheless, and best of luck to you in this endeavor!
- adamjs 8y agoHaha, at ease sergeant, thank you! Building WebKit from scratch was, shall I say, an exquisite learning experience. My first change was re-writing part of the CMake scripts to make it more elegant.
- missblit 8y agoDid you get deep enough into WebKit to see that the namespace for the utility functions is called WTF? :) I also like how there are at least five string classes (to be fair, there are good reasons for most of them): String, AtomicString, StringImpl, CString, WebString. Edit: If you're feeling particularly brave, look up some of the text-run and unicode bidi algorithm related code. I don't remember how old that code is, but some of the darker corners of WebKit go back literally decades.