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> Servo hasn’t been finished in 10 years. Mozilla laid off all their servo developers in 2020 > Has it ever been shown that it’s possible to write a full brow

by leshow 5y ago

> Servo hasn’t been finished in 10 years. Mozilla laid off all their servo developers in 2020 > Has it ever been shown that it’s possible to write a full browser engine in Rust? Why wouldn't it be possible?

nlitened 5y ago
> Mozilla laid off all their servo developers in 2020 Yeah, I know, that’s sad. > Why wouldn't it be possible? I don’t know if it’s possible in reality or not, but if I have to, I can imagine some reasons (I’m making them up): maybe it takes too long to write proper safe Rust, or maybe developers get stuck bikeshedding over use of language features, or maybe the language’s learning curve is too steep, or maybe compilation is too long for fast dev iterations, or maybe developers who like Rust don’t like large codebases, or maybe Rust does not provide any tangible benefits over already existing code, or any combination of reasons. Of course, you can write any program in any general-purpose language, just not everything is practical to be ever made. Like, I doubt people will make a full browser engine in Python, although it’s possible in theory.
- pritambaral 5y ago
  > I can imagine some reasons (I’m making them up): ... All your listed reasons apply equally (or even more strongly) to C++.
  - nlitened 5y ago
    My point is, these reasons obviously didn’t hinder a possibility of making a full browser engine in C++ multiple independent times. But for Rust — they might be too big of an obstacle to make one. (Original discussion was about comparing quality of browser engines written in C++ and in Rust)
- leshow 5y ago
  Keep in mind Rust wasn't even 1.0 until 2015, so servo was being developed in tandem with that, from 2015 to 2020 they integrated stylo from servo to firefox, and a few other components if memory serves. So no, I guess they didn't bring an entire re-write to market in that time, but I don't think you can attribute any of those failings to language choice.

by leshow 5y ago

nlitened 5y ago

> Mozilla laid off all their servo developers in 2020 Yeah, I know, that’s sad. > Why wouldn't it be possible? I don’t know if it’s possible in reality or not, but if I have to, I can imagine some reasons (I’m making them up): maybe it takes too long to write proper safe Rust, or maybe developers get stuck bikeshedding over use of language features, or maybe the language’s learning curve is too steep, or maybe compilation is too long for fast dev iterations, or maybe developers who like Rust don’t like large codebases, or maybe Rust does not provide any tangible benefits over already existing code, or any combination of reasons. Of course, you can write any program in any general-purpose language, just not everything is practical to be ever made. Like, I doubt people will make a full browser engine in Python, although it’s possible in theory.

pritambaral 5y ago
> I can imagine some reasons (I’m making them up): ... All your listed reasons apply equally (or even more strongly) to C++.
- nlitened 5y ago
  My point is, these reasons obviously didn’t hinder a possibility of making a full browser engine in C++ multiple independent times. But for Rust — they might be too big of an obstacle to make one. (Original discussion was about comparing quality of browser engines written in C++ and in Rust)
leshow 5y ago
Keep in mind Rust wasn't even 1.0 until 2015, so servo was being developed in tandem with that, from 2015 to 2020 they integrated stylo from servo to firefox, and a few other components if memory serves. So no, I guess they didn't bring an entire re-write to market in that time, but I don't think you can attribute any of those failings to language choice.