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This is the famous trap that Joel on Software talked about in a blog post long time ago. If you do a rewrite you essentially put everything else on halt while

by samiv 8mo ago

This is the famous trap that Joel on Software talked about in a blog post long time ago. If you do a rewrite you essentially put everything else on halt while rewriting. If you keep doing feature dev on the old while another "tiger team" is doing the rewrite port then these two teams are essentially in a race against each other and the port will likely never catch up. (Depending on relative velocities) Maybe they think that they can to this LLM assisted tools in a big bang approach quickly and then continue from there without spending too much time on it.

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> then these two teams are essentially in a race against each other and the port will likely never catch up Ladybird appears to have the discipline to have recognized this: “[Rust] is not becoming the main focus of the project. We will continue developing the engine in C++, and porting subsystems to Rust will be a sidetrack that runs for a long time.”
- safercplusplus 8mo ago
  And I might suggest that there's the possibility that the C++ code could end up being more cleanly ported to a memory-safe subset of C++. plug: https://github.com/duneroadrunner/scpptool/blob/master/approach_to_lifetime_safety_summary.md https://github.com/duneroadrunner/scpptool/blob/master/appro...
christophilus 8mo ago
I’ve been part of at least 2 successful rewrites. I think that Joel’s post is too often taken as gospel. Sometimes a rewrite is the best way forward. Moving Ladybird from C++ to a safer more modern language is a real differentiator vs other browsers, and will probably pay dividends. Doing it now is better than doing it once ladybird is fully established. One last point about rewrites: you can look at any industry disruptor as essentially a team that did a from-scratch rewrite of their competitors and won because the rewrite was better.
- abuyalip 8mo ago
  I still don’t buy this “safer more modern” mentality. Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. People need to learn how to use tools properly. If you ask me, Go is a better Rust. Rust is an ugly version of C++ with longer compile times and a band of zealous missionaries. I mean the keywords mut and fn very annoying to read just get rid of them or spell the f*n thing function.
  - nicoburns 8mo ago
    > Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. The statistics from projects that have adopted Rust and measured the effect say otherwise. See https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-things.html https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move... for example.
    - steve1977 8mo ago
      This article is not really specifying if Rust is compared against "Modern C++" or "Old School C++". The only thing we can assume is that at least part of it is "Google C++". Maybe we would see similar effects adopting Modern C++. Maybe not. The article doesn't tell us.
      - bogeholm 8mo ago
        Yeah I guess most True Scotsmen write modern C++ after all.
  - panstromek 8mo ago
    > Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. I always wonder how can one come to such a conclusion. Modern C++ has no way to enforce relationship between two objects in memory and the shared xor mutable rule, which means it can't even do the basic checks that are the foundation of Rust's safety features. Of course, this statement is also trivially debunked by the reality of any major C++ program with complexity and attack surface of something like a browser. Modern C++ certainly didn't save Chrome from CVEs. They ban a bunch of C++ features, enforce the rule of two, and do a bunch of hardening and fuzzing on top of it and they still don't get spared from safety issues.
simonw 8mo ago
Nearly 26 years ago! https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... What's different today really is the LLMs and coding agents. The reason to never rewrite in another language is that it requires you to stop everything else for months or even years. Stopping for two weeks is a lot less likely to kill your project.
- oblio 8mo ago
  He's still right if you don't have good automated testing and you lost most of the original developers (or you don't have other seniors ceva familiar with the domain).
  - simonw 8mo ago
    Hah, yeah if you don't have a comprehensive test suite any rewrite will be a disaster - step one is to get the test suite up to code.
- ignoramous 8mo ago
  > What's different today really is the LLMs and coding agents. In Ladybird's case, tests they could rely upon.
raincole 8mo ago
The context matters when we talk about Joel's article[0]. It's about Netscape. By the time, Netscape had dominated the browser market. It was the leader and that means they had all the market share to lose. You can bet Microsoft's decision makers were very closely monitoring what those at Netscape were doing. Today, practically nobody uses Ladybird. No one even knows it[1]. It's so behind and has nothing to lose. If you really want to rewrite, it's better to do it when you have nothing to lose. [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... [1]: to quote Joel, "no one" means less than one million people.

by samiv 8mo ago

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago

> then these two teams are essentially in a race against each other and the port will likely never catch up Ladybird appears to have the discipline to have recognized this: “[Rust] is not becoming the main focus of the project. We will continue developing the engine in C++, and porting subsystems to Rust will be a sidetrack that runs for a long time.”

safercplusplus 8mo ago
And I might suggest that there's the possibility that the C++ code could end up being more cleanly ported to a memory-safe subset of C++. plug: https://github.com/duneroadrunner/scpptool/blob/master/approach_to_lifetime_safety_summary.md https://github.com/duneroadrunner/scpptool/blob/master/appro...

christophilus 8mo ago

I’ve been part of at least 2 successful rewrites. I think that Joel’s post is too often taken as gospel. Sometimes a rewrite is the best way forward. Moving Ladybird from C++ to a safer more modern language is a real differentiator vs other browsers, and will probably pay dividends. Doing it now is better than doing it once ladybird is fully established. One last point about rewrites: you can look at any industry disruptor as essentially a team that did a from-scratch rewrite of their competitors and won because the rewrite was better.

abuyalip 8mo ago
I still don’t buy this “safer more modern” mentality. Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. People need to learn how to use tools properly. If you ask me, Go is a better Rust. Rust is an ugly version of C++ with longer compile times and a band of zealous missionaries. I mean the keywords mut and fn very annoying to read just get rid of them or spell the f*n thing function.
- nicoburns 8mo ago
  > Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. The statistics from projects that have adopted Rust and measured the effect say otherwise. See https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move-fast-fix-things.html https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move... for example.
  - steve1977 8mo ago
    This article is not really specifying if Rust is compared against "Modern C++" or "Old School C++". The only thing we can assume is that at least part of it is "Google C++". Maybe we would see similar effects adopting Modern C++. Maybe not. The article doesn't tell us.
    - bogeholm 8mo ago
      Yeah I guess most True Scotsmen write modern C++ after all.
- panstromek 8mo ago
  > Modern C++ pretty much solves the safety issues. I always wonder how can one come to such a conclusion. Modern C++ has no way to enforce relationship between two objects in memory and the shared xor mutable rule, which means it can't even do the basic checks that are the foundation of Rust's safety features. Of course, this statement is also trivially debunked by the reality of any major C++ program with complexity and attack surface of something like a browser. Modern C++ certainly didn't save Chrome from CVEs. They ban a bunch of C++ features, enforce the rule of two, and do a bunch of hardening and fuzzing on top of it and they still don't get spared from safety issues.

simonw 8mo ago

Nearly 26 years ago! https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... What's different today really is the LLMs and coding agents. The reason to never rewrite in another language is that it requires you to stop everything else for months or even years. Stopping for two weeks is a lot less likely to kill your project.

oblio 8mo ago
He's still right if you don't have good automated testing and you lost most of the original developers (or you don't have other seniors ceva familiar with the domain).
- simonw 8mo ago
  Hah, yeah if you don't have a comprehensive test suite any rewrite will be a disaster - step one is to get the test suite up to code.
ignoramous 8mo ago
> What's different today really is the LLMs and coding agents. In Ladybird's case, tests they could rely upon.

raincole 8mo ago

The context matters when we talk about Joel's article[0]. It's about Netscape. By the time, Netscape had dominated the browser market. It was the leader and that means they had all the market share to lose. You can bet Microsoft's decision makers were very closely monitoring what those at Netscape were doing. Today, practically nobody uses Ladybird. No one even knows it[1]. It's so behind and has nothing to lose. If you really want to rewrite, it's better to do it when you have nothing to lose. [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... [1]: to quote Joel, "no one" means less than one million people.