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Literally the first thing I looked for...(if it is based on chromium). When can we get a new kind of browser that doesn't use html/css/js...? Build one from sc

Literally the first thing I looked for...(if it is based on chromium). When can we get a new kind of browser that doesn't use html/css/js...? Build one from scratch with a common design language (but modifiable by the user)

PUSH_AX 1y ago
This is a gargantuan task, I can’t even articulate how much work this would be.
- teekert 1y ago
  Make it markdown based. It'll be like the web once was... Just documents linking to other documents, with images and videos. We just pretend web 2.0 never happened. Everybody can write markdown so we don't even need web2.0.
  - chiffaa 1y ago
    You might wanna look into Gopher and Gemini protocols, as they seem to be pretty much exactly that
    - 1313ed01 1y ago
      Gemini is probably not exactly what GP wished for, but it has something resembling a critical mass of users and while I do not think the text format (gemtext, i.e. gmi) is perfect I find it good enough for what it does. I even use gemtext now and then offline just as an even simpler markdown. Since it has so few features it is trivial to convert gmi to markdown or to any other format without losing anything. It works as a lowest common markup language for when something that minimal is enough.
  - xigoi 1y ago
    Can we please not switch to a format which is simultaneously more complex and less capable than HTML?
- ionelaipatioaei 1y ago
  Depends on your goals but I think a minimal and useful browser with completely new APIs wouldn't be so hard to do if you leverage the huge amount of existing open source libraries. The hardest part would be getting people to actually use it.
typpilol 1y ago
That would be a monumental task probably requiring tens of millions to be honest
- balamatom 1y ago
  Tens of millions? That'd be just the palm-greasing before you are allowed to begin!
  - fleebee 1y ago
    I think they meant tens of millions of people.
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      Not tens of millions of lines of code? So many choices!
    - balamatom 1y ago
      You mean tens of millions of consumers? That would actually make sense. But it would also point at the larger problem (the one we're not actually looking into because we're too busy with solving the unsolvable a.k.a. with C++). It goes like this: are "we" building a browser for it to be reckoned with, or are "we" building a browser in order to let people browse webpages? Because only one of these two requires collecting tens of million of... pretty much anything where ten million is a large number I guess? Yet people conflate the two, thinking the same approach holds for both goals, so let's put it sideways: Which exact problem does a new browser (engine) solve, besides people saying there are too few browsers? What's the purpose of having this problem, its underlying nature? Can we solve it a way that doesn't require reimplementing the last 30 years of computing history? Can we even go look for such a way or will someone show up to stop us? If the goal is to become a browser vendor, obviously there's no workaround to building a browser (or rebadging one lol); if the goal is not that or not only that, anyone building a browser is gonna have to expound a little more on what exactly they're trying to achieve. That's complicated by how the vast difference between a new browser engine and, say, a new model of TV set, can't really be expressed in beancounts.
ranguna 1y ago
So you mean a browser that can't load any existing pages?
hoistbypetard 1y ago
1991? (gopher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) 2019? (gemini) https://geminiprotocol.net https://geminiprotocol.net

PUSH_AX 1y ago

This is a gargantuan task, I can’t even articulate how much work this would be.

teekert 1y ago
Make it markdown based. It'll be like the web once was... Just documents linking to other documents, with images and videos. We just pretend web 2.0 never happened. Everybody can write markdown so we don't even need web2.0.
- chiffaa 1y ago
  You might wanna look into Gopher and Gemini protocols, as they seem to be pretty much exactly that
  - 1313ed01 1y ago
    Gemini is probably not exactly what GP wished for, but it has something resembling a critical mass of users and while I do not think the text format (gemtext, i.e. gmi) is perfect I find it good enough for what it does. I even use gemtext now and then offline just as an even simpler markdown. Since it has so few features it is trivial to convert gmi to markdown or to any other format without losing anything. It works as a lowest common markup language for when something that minimal is enough.
- xigoi 1y ago
  Can we please not switch to a format which is simultaneously more complex and less capable than HTML?
ionelaipatioaei 1y ago
Depends on your goals but I think a minimal and useful browser with completely new APIs wouldn't be so hard to do if you leverage the huge amount of existing open source libraries. The hardest part would be getting people to actually use it.

typpilol 1y ago

That would be a monumental task probably requiring tens of millions to be honest

balamatom 1y ago
Tens of millions? That'd be just the palm-greasing before you are allowed to begin!
- fleebee 1y ago
  I think they meant tens of millions of people.
  - dotancohen 1y ago
    Not tens of millions of lines of code? So many choices!
  - balamatom 1y ago
    You mean tens of millions of consumers? That would actually make sense. But it would also point at the larger problem (the one we're not actually looking into because we're too busy with solving the unsolvable a.k.a. with C++). It goes like this: are "we" building a browser for it to be reckoned with, or are "we" building a browser in order to let people browse webpages? Because only one of these two requires collecting tens of million of... pretty much anything where ten million is a large number I guess? Yet people conflate the two, thinking the same approach holds for both goals, so let's put it sideways: Which exact problem does a new browser (engine) solve, besides people saying there are too few browsers? What's the purpose of having this problem, its underlying nature? Can we solve it a way that doesn't require reimplementing the last 30 years of computing history? Can we even go look for such a way or will someone show up to stop us? If the goal is to become a browser vendor, obviously there's no workaround to building a browser (or rebadging one lol); if the goal is not that or not only that, anyone building a browser is gonna have to expound a little more on what exactly they're trying to achieve. That's complicated by how the vast difference between a new browser engine and, say, a new model of TV set, can't really be expressed in beancounts.

ranguna 1y ago

So you mean a browser that can't load any existing pages?

hoistbypetard 1y ago

1991? (gopher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) 2019? (gemini) https://geminiprotocol.net https://geminiprotocol.net