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Let's imagine a browser (UA) that supports basics of HTML (language portion of HTML5) and CSS (e.g. v 2.1). Yet it has WebVM instead of JS. WebVM is a virtual

Let's imagine a browser (UA) that supports basics of HTML (language portion of HTML5) and CSS (e.g. v 2.1). Yet it has WebVM instead of JS. WebVM is a virtual machine similar to JavaVM but with DOM, CSSOM and layout APIs exposed in it as a runtime. So if some site needs flexbox in its CSS then it can be included as: <link href=".../css-flexbox.bytecodes" rel="extension"> If JS then <link href=".../es6-compiler.bytecodes" rel="extension"> and so on. This would allow a) keep browser small and maintainable and b) open room for innovations in Web technology beyond browser vendors and comities. As an example: TypeScript can be compiled to WebVM bytecodes instead of JS.

tannhaeuser 6y ago
Not bad an idea at all! Hadn't considered bytecodes for layout algorithms, though I guess it would work with regular js as well, and I AFAICS Project Houdini is about providing the necessary core rendering API.
- c-smile 6y ago
  > would work with regular js as well In principle JS may work but it is too slow for that. Function calls are too pricey, no integer arithmetic, etc. At least in my Sciter (https://sciter.com https://sciter.com) element's layout controller must have three methods: void calc_min_maxes() // calculates min-content and max-content int layout_width(int px_new_width); int layout_height(int px_new_height); so it is quite easy to add new layout modes. This way I've added () flow:grid(...); // a la display:grid flow:horizontal; // a la display:flexbox flow:stack; // no alternatives in standard CSS etc. Modern Java (and C# for that matter) are almost ideal for such things, especially considering modern effective JITs and VMs.
zzo38computer 6y ago
What is needed in some ability to identify the extension, so that the user may substitute their own, or may want to cache it instead. This would also improve speed, since it can avoid download it for each separate web page, and can also substitute a native code implementation.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

Not bad an idea at all! Hadn't considered bytecodes for layout algorithms, though I guess it would work with regular js as well, and I AFAICS Project Houdini is about providing the necessary core rendering API.

c-smile 6y ago
> would work with regular js as well In principle JS may work but it is too slow for that. Function calls are too pricey, no integer arithmetic, etc. At least in my Sciter (https://sciter.com https://sciter.com) element's layout controller must have three methods: void calc_min_maxes() // calculates min-content and max-content int layout_width(int px_new_width); int layout_height(int px_new_height); so it is quite easy to add new layout modes. This way I've added () flow:grid(...); // a la display:grid flow:horizontal; // a la display:flexbox flow:stack; // no alternatives in standard CSS etc. Modern Java (and C# for that matter) are almost ideal for such things, especially considering modern effective JITs and VMs.

zzo38computer 6y ago

What is needed in some ability to identify the extension, so that the user may substitute their own, or may want to cache it instead. This would also improve speed, since it can avoid download it for each separate web page, and can also substitute a native code implementation.