3 ms·

Servo is starting to become usable

4 points by hagbard_c 9mo ago

hagbard_c 9mo ago
Posting this using servoshell, the rudimentary browser UI based on the Servo engine which has made great strides lately and now is starting to become usable for general-purpose browsing. https://servo.org/download/ https://servo.org/download/
palata 9mo ago
I genuinely wonder what "starting to become usable" means there. Is it the first time that anyone can load a simple static page? Or is it good enough to browse most of the web, but some features are missing like... I don't know WebRTC or passkeys?
- hagbard_c 9mo ago
  A simple static page is not equal to 'starting to become usable', that'd be 'passes the first experimental test'. By 'starting to become usable' I mean Nextcloud and all related apps I've tested work as intended and I'm posting this message from within servoshell. I've kept track of its progress just like I did back in the time of its spiritual predecessor - Mozilla, then Phoenix which became Firebird which became Firefox - and was until recently not able to get it to show much more than that simple static page you mentioned. While it may have passed a bunch of verification suites it - servoshell if not the Servo rendering engine itself - it was not usable for much more than showing that static page. Now, it is. Its usability resembles that of early, pre 1.0-versions of Firefox. I used those just like many others did, warts and all, and reported and where possible fixed bugs. Why now post this for Servo and servoshell? Because it seems to be close to the same state as Firefox was when it became somewhat usable and with that it became possible for others to start using it and report any bugs and hiccups. The more people do this, the fast the progress will be. A usable alternative browser engine and with that usable alternative browsers is a big, BIG thing and worth reporting as well as supporting in its progress.
  - palata 9mo ago
    I was kindly asking more details about what "starting to become usable" means (i.e. should I try it or does it feel like a tech demo?), and I feel like I am being sermoned in return :-). > Its usability resembles that of early, pre 1.0-versions of Firefox. Not sure what it means to me. Pre 1.0 of Firefox was what... 20 years ago? > The more people do this, the fast the progress will be. As a developer myself, I kindly disagree. I mean this is not a general rule. When my code is not ready, having tons of people test it doesn't help me: I just ignore their reports because anyway my code was not ready for their testing. Is the Servo team asking for that, or is it just your feeling?
    - hagbard_c 9mo ago
      > Not sure what it means to me. Pre 1.0 of Firefox was what... 20 years ago? Why does that matter? For those who were around at that time the release of the Netscape code was a big thing. This led to the further development of the Mozilla browser which was close to the closed-source Netscape suite, including loads of tools which were used by few but increased the code size and complexity. Eventually a new browser shell was created based on the Mozilla Gecko engine and the XUL user interface markup language. The release of the first usable versions of Firefox promised to fulfil the expectations raised by the release of the Netscape code: a relatively lightweight, capable browser which could be the tool to escape the stranglehold which Microsoft had on the web through its (ab)use of their desktop platform dominance and the Internet Explorer browser. Now we're close to being back to where this started with Blink/Chrome instead of Internet Explorer - and for web developers the annoying presence of Safari with its lackluster adoption of 'standards' which threaten the app store income stream - and there is a clear need for an alternative. Servo may end up being this alternative no matter whether the Servo developers deem this to be the intended purpose of their work or not. As to whether they consider their code to be ready for testing I can only refer you to the site I linked to. I have the idea you're reticent in accepting the possibility of Servo becoming the needed alternative to the Blink/Webkit hegemony. Am I correct in thinking so and if so, why is this the case? Also, as a developer myself I subscribe to the 'release early, fail fast' philosophy. Early failures tend to be small failures, easily corrected. Servo has been under development for more than 13 years as a research project, first inside Mozilla, then outside after Mitchell Baker considered her ideologically driven political activism more important than Mozilla's actual core mission of developing web technologies and fired all Servo developers in 2020. Development continued nevertheless, now by volunteers. Here's where to go if you want to contribute to the development: https://book.servo.org/contributing/getting-started.html https://book.servo.org/contributing/getting-started.html

4 points by hagbard_c 9mo ago

Posting this using servoshell, the rudimentary browser UI based on the Servo engine which has made great strides lately and now is starting to become usable for general-purpose browsing. https://servo.org/download/ https://servo.org/download/

palata 9mo ago

I genuinely wonder what "starting to become usable" means there. Is it the first time that anyone can load a simple static page? Or is it good enough to browse most of the web, but some features are missing like... I don't know WebRTC or passkeys?

hagbard_c 9mo ago
A simple static page is not equal to 'starting to become usable', that'd be 'passes the first experimental test'. By 'starting to become usable' I mean Nextcloud and all related apps I've tested work as intended and I'm posting this message from within servoshell. I've kept track of its progress just like I did back in the time of its spiritual predecessor - Mozilla, then Phoenix which became Firebird which became Firefox - and was until recently not able to get it to show much more than that simple static page you mentioned. While it may have passed a bunch of verification suites it - servoshell if not the Servo rendering engine itself - it was not usable for much more than showing that static page. Now, it is. Its usability resembles that of early, pre 1.0-versions of Firefox. I used those just like many others did, warts and all, and reported and where possible fixed bugs. Why now post this for Servo and servoshell? Because it seems to be close to the same state as Firefox was when it became somewhat usable and with that it became possible for others to start using it and report any bugs and hiccups. The more people do this, the fast the progress will be. A usable alternative browser engine and with that usable alternative browsers is a big, BIG thing and worth reporting as well as supporting in its progress.
- palata 9mo ago
  I was kindly asking more details about what "starting to become usable" means (i.e. should I try it or does it feel like a tech demo?), and I feel like I am being sermoned in return :-). > Its usability resembles that of early, pre 1.0-versions of Firefox. Not sure what it means to me. Pre 1.0 of Firefox was what... 20 years ago? > The more people do this, the fast the progress will be. As a developer myself, I kindly disagree. I mean this is not a general rule. When my code is not ready, having tons of people test it doesn't help me: I just ignore their reports because anyway my code was not ready for their testing. Is the Servo team asking for that, or is it just your feeling?
  - hagbard_c 9mo ago
    > Not sure what it means to me. Pre 1.0 of Firefox was what... 20 years ago? Why does that matter? For those who were around at that time the release of the Netscape code was a big thing. This led to the further development of the Mozilla browser which was close to the closed-source Netscape suite, including loads of tools which were used by few but increased the code size and complexity. Eventually a new browser shell was created based on the Mozilla Gecko engine and the XUL user interface markup language. The release of the first usable versions of Firefox promised to fulfil the expectations raised by the release of the Netscape code: a relatively lightweight, capable browser which could be the tool to escape the stranglehold which Microsoft had on the web through its (ab)use of their desktop platform dominance and the Internet Explorer browser. Now we're close to being back to where this started with Blink/Chrome instead of Internet Explorer - and for web developers the annoying presence of Safari with its lackluster adoption of 'standards' which threaten the app store income stream - and there is a clear need for an alternative. Servo may end up being this alternative no matter whether the Servo developers deem this to be the intended purpose of their work or not. As to whether they consider their code to be ready for testing I can only refer you to the site I linked to. I have the idea you're reticent in accepting the possibility of Servo becoming the needed alternative to the Blink/Webkit hegemony. Am I correct in thinking so and if so, why is this the case? Also, as a developer myself I subscribe to the 'release early, fail fast' philosophy. Early failures tend to be small failures, easily corrected. Servo has been under development for more than 13 years as a research project, first inside Mozilla, then outside after Mitchell Baker considered her ideologically driven political activism more important than Mozilla's actual core mission of developing web technologies and fired all Servo developers in 2020. Development continued nevertheless, now by volunteers. Here's where to go if you want to contribute to the development: https://book.servo.org/contributing/getting-started.html https://book.servo.org/contributing/getting-started.html