5 ms·

It certainly looked super fast but no networking or web browser from what I saw.

bitva77 5y ago
hrmm, gitlab page mentions a full networking stack. Not sure on the web browser though
BlackLotus89 5y ago
It has networking https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence#features https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence#features Even has an irc client ;) everything you need
- sys_64738 5y ago
  I watched the video which said no networking. Maybe the video is old.
dmitriid 5y ago
These days it's easier to create an OS from scratch than a web browser.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  That’s actually pretty scarry. Someone can write and entire graphical operating system, including filesystem and everything, but that same person have no hope of writing a browser to go with it. There’s almost no commercial insentive to create a browser/rendering engine (Opera couldn’t make it work), and it almost to much work for an open source project to take on. As sad as it might be, Google won and Chromium will be the final browser, everything else is just customization. At least Microsoft had the courtesy of slowing down progress with Internet Explorer, allowing others to more easily catch up.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    The SerenityOS people are implementing their own browser. It's nowhere near usable for the modern web yet, but it's slowly chugging along, inching closer. Of course the difference between building an OS and a browser is that for an OS, you just have to build something that is usable, how you get there and what that looks like is up to you, and you can really get creative with it and break norms. For a browser engine, by definition, you have to build something that behaves basically exactly the same as any other modern browser. So you're implementing a gargantuan spec to a very high level of precision (since you have no control over how it's used), and the end result is a technical feat that's only impressive in the fact that it was done, not in that you get to use it now, and it does anything a reskinned chrome wouldn't do.
    - gjvc 5y ago
      please check the video I mentioned in the above post; Alan Kay addresses exactly this point ...in 1997
- gjvc 5y ago
  These days it's easier to create an OS from scratch than a web browser. This is an excellent observation, and gives me an excuse to recommend Alan Kay's seminal OOPSLA 1997 keynote "The computer revolution hasnt happened yet" -- the link to the whole thing is below, but I've set the time at the start of what I think is the immediately relevant point (he takes a minute or so to explain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&t=1330s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&t=1330s
- sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
  Lately I was tryong to understand the exact reason "why". Why are modern browsers so ridiculously complicated? Rendering a (albeit confusing) content is a PDF-like kind of job (or am I wrong?) What is the exact complexity here (except for JS compiler, which is again just a compiler)?
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > What is the exact complexity here There are hundreds of standards spanning thens of thousands of pages. Some of them are obsolete, some of them are not, most of them interact with each other in complex and non-obvious ways. An attempt to measure the scope is here: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.... And that's before we get to things like Javascript or WASM. Another measure is the count of WebAPIs. A modern browser ships six to seven thousand APIs: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence All these APIs are available via Javascript
    - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
      Thanks. It looks like complexity increase deliberately aimed at maintaining market monopoly. I can't rationally believe than tens of thousands of pages of documents are needed to display just a (however complex it is) UI. It's a UI engine, after all, and nothing more.
      - tekknik 5y ago
        With file system access, media APIs, and networking, the browser is more comparable to a full fledged operating system than a UI framework.
        sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
        It is not merely "comparable". It is in fact hundreds or thousands of times more complex, as it turns out (and it still consumes OS API's). I don't find it adequate.

hrmm, gitlab page mentions a full networking stack. Not sure on the web browser though

It has networking https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence#features https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence#features Even has an irc client ;) everything you need

sys_64738 5y ago
I watched the video which said no networking. Maybe the video is old.

dmitriid 5y ago

These days it's easier to create an OS from scratch than a web browser.

mrweasel 5y ago
That’s actually pretty scarry. Someone can write and entire graphical operating system, including filesystem and everything, but that same person have no hope of writing a browser to go with it. There’s almost no commercial insentive to create a browser/rendering engine (Opera couldn’t make it work), and it almost to much work for an open source project to take on. As sad as it might be, Google won and Chromium will be the final browser, everything else is just customization. At least Microsoft had the courtesy of slowing down progress with Internet Explorer, allowing others to more easily catch up.
- asddubs 5y ago
  The SerenityOS people are implementing their own browser. It's nowhere near usable for the modern web yet, but it's slowly chugging along, inching closer. Of course the difference between building an OS and a browser is that for an OS, you just have to build something that is usable, how you get there and what that looks like is up to you, and you can really get creative with it and break norms. For a browser engine, by definition, you have to build something that behaves basically exactly the same as any other modern browser. So you're implementing a gargantuan spec to a very high level of precision (since you have no control over how it's used), and the end result is a technical feat that's only impressive in the fact that it was done, not in that you get to use it now, and it does anything a reskinned chrome wouldn't do.
  - gjvc 5y ago
    please check the video I mentioned in the above post; Alan Kay addresses exactly this point ...in 1997
gjvc 5y ago
These days it's easier to create an OS from scratch than a web browser. This is an excellent observation, and gives me an excuse to recommend Alan Kay's seminal OOPSLA 1997 keynote "The computer revolution hasnt happened yet" -- the link to the whole thing is below, but I've set the time at the start of what I think is the immediately relevant point (he takes a minute or so to explain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&t=1330s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY&t=1330s
sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
Lately I was tryong to understand the exact reason "why". Why are modern browsers so ridiculously complicated? Rendering a (albeit confusing) content is a PDF-like kind of job (or am I wrong?) What is the exact complexity here (except for JS compiler, which is again just a compiler)?
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > What is the exact complexity here There are hundreds of standards spanning thens of thousands of pages. Some of them are obsolete, some of them are not, most of them interact with each other in complex and non-obvious ways. An attempt to measure the scope is here: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.... And that's before we get to things like Javascript or WASM. Another measure is the count of WebAPIs. A modern browser ships six to seven thousand APIs: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence All these APIs are available via Javascript
  - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
    Thanks. It looks like complexity increase deliberately aimed at maintaining market monopoly. I can't rationally believe than tens of thousands of pages of documents are needed to display just a (however complex it is) UI. It's a UI engine, after all, and nothing more.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      With file system access, media APIs, and networking, the browser is more comparable to a full fledged operating system than a UI framework.
      - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
        It is not merely "comparable". It is in fact hundreds or thousands of times more complex, as it turns out (and it still consumes OS API's). I don't find it adequate.