4 ms·

How Browsers Work (2012)

71 points by asamant 6y ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
This says Webkit uses flex and bison for HTML parsing.
- akling 6y ago
  It says it uses flex and bison for CSS parsing, which was true at the time of writing. It was replaced by a hand-written parser by Dave Hyatt in 2016.
octoberfranklin 6y ago
How Browsers Work (2020): everybody just repackages Chromium. ...and Mozilla has some people dorking around with VR headsets.
the_only_law 6y ago
I've known a few people (including myself) who have casually thought about what it would take to write a new browser engine. Obviously it's a titanic undertaking and unrealistic project but one thing I considered recently: There are a ton of new API's the browser has added since HTML5 giving all sorts of capabilities. Hell, Chrome can access USB devices on your host if you allow it permissions. But is there a canonical list of all standardized web API's somewhere? Something that a browser engine developer could look at to decide what API's are must haves and what are optional.
- swiley 6y ago
  That's what the documents the W3C maintains are supposed to be.
- userbinator 6y ago
  I have also had that thought for a long time (nearly a decade), remember seeing this article and progressed beyond thought to start writing some code, but naturally have plenty of other things to work on, so it's been very slow going. I have in mind only something comparable to NetSurf or Dillo, but even that is not trivial.
- lucideer 6y ago
  > is there a canonical list of all standardized web API's somewhere MDN[0] is probably the best list intended for this purpose, but it's easier to use if you already know what you're looking for. While not explicitly its intent, I think caniuse[1] may be a better list for top-level browsing. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API [1] https://caniuse.com/ciu/index https://caniuse.com/ciu/index
  - kaycebasques 6y ago
    See also browser-compat-data, the source data for Can I Use? and the Browser Compatibility tables at the bottom of MDN reference pages. I believe VS Code and other tools also rely on it. https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data
- Tade0 6y ago
  These guys: https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ Probably had to ask themselves the same question. Not sure if they have a published list though.
la_fayette 6y ago
Is there any newer work on that matter published somewhere?
dccoolgai 6y ago
I must have read this 20 times. Great resource over the years... I've been looking for a newer version.
kaycebasques 6y ago
See also "Inside Look At Modern Web Browser" series: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/09/inside-browser-part1 https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/09/inside-bro... And "Anatomy Of A Frame": https://aerotwist.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-frame/ https://aerotwist.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-frame/ Also "Inside A Super Fast CSS Engine: Quantum CSS (AKA Stylo)": https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine-quantum-css-aka-stylo/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-en... If you dig around chromium.org you can find lots of details about Chromium's guts, too.

71 points by asamant 6y ago

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

This says Webkit uses flex and bison for HTML parsing.

akling 6y ago
It says it uses flex and bison for CSS parsing, which was true at the time of writing. It was replaced by a hand-written parser by Dave Hyatt in 2016.

octoberfranklin 6y ago

How Browsers Work (2020): everybody just repackages Chromium. ...and Mozilla has some people dorking around with VR headsets.

the_only_law 6y ago

I've known a few people (including myself) who have casually thought about what it would take to write a new browser engine. Obviously it's a titanic undertaking and unrealistic project but one thing I considered recently: There are a ton of new API's the browser has added since HTML5 giving all sorts of capabilities. Hell, Chrome can access USB devices on your host if you allow it permissions. But is there a canonical list of all standardized web API's somewhere? Something that a browser engine developer could look at to decide what API's are must haves and what are optional.

swiley 6y ago
That's what the documents the W3C maintains are supposed to be.
userbinator 6y ago
I have also had that thought for a long time (nearly a decade), remember seeing this article and progressed beyond thought to start writing some code, but naturally have plenty of other things to work on, so it's been very slow going. I have in mind only something comparable to NetSurf or Dillo, but even that is not trivial.
lucideer 6y ago
> is there a canonical list of all standardized web API's somewhere MDN[0] is probably the best list intended for this purpose, but it's easier to use if you already know what you're looking for. While not explicitly its intent, I think caniuse[1] may be a better list for top-level browsing. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API [1] https://caniuse.com/ciu/index https://caniuse.com/ciu/index
- kaycebasques 6y ago
  See also browser-compat-data, the source data for Can I Use? and the Browser Compatibility tables at the bottom of MDN reference pages. I believe VS Code and other tools also rely on it. https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data
Tade0 6y ago
These guys: https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ Probably had to ask themselves the same question. Not sure if they have a published list though.

la_fayette 6y ago

Is there any newer work on that matter published somewhere?

dccoolgai 6y ago

I must have read this 20 times. Great resource over the years... I've been looking for a newer version.

kaycebasques 6y ago

See also "Inside Look At Modern Web Browser" series: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/09/inside-browser-part1 https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/09/inside-bro... And "Anatomy Of A Frame": https://aerotwist.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-frame/ https://aerotwist.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-frame/ Also "Inside A Super Fast CSS Engine: Quantum CSS (AKA Stylo)": https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine-quantum-css-aka-stylo/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-en... If you dig around chromium.org you can find lots of details about Chromium's guts, too.