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Too bad LadyBird is being translated to LLM generated Rust. It's nice that Rust is so beginner friendly but it would be nicer to have a pure C++ browser for th

Too bad LadyBird is being translated to LLM generated Rust. It's nice that Rust is so beginner friendly but it would be nicer to have a pure C++ browser for the more experienced developers, to use as a basis for their projects like Chromium is used.

teruakohatu 6mo ago
If LLMs allow them to speedrun to an alternative mainstream browser, then full speed ahead. A third runner in this space would make the browser market a lot healthier than the current chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly.
- latexr 6mo ago
  I’d rather have a good browser which took its time to get things right than a speed run one. Too much software is written like that, and the result is that most things are shit. What are we in such a hurry for? To get more time to work more? Fucking chill. Do things slowly and right. As a side thought, speed running seems like the wrong analogy for software. Speed runners in games are people who spend a ton of time doing the exact same steps over and over to find tiny optimisations and develop muscle memory to do something repeatable. They take the time to do it well. Being a good speed runner means embracing slow progress. It’s the antithesis of software, where rushing to get it out also means you barely look at it. You do it fast but seldom right.
  - TehCorwiz 6mo ago
    What are your thoughts on the current code quality? Have you had a chance to review it?
    - latexr 6mo ago
      I have, but that’s irrelevant. I’m commenting on the general sentiment, not any specific project.
  - dirasieb 6mo ago
    are you willing to contribute time, money and code?
    - latexr 6mo ago
      Your argument is so removed from the point, it’s an entirely different conversation. I already contribute time and code to open source projects, and I promise you’ll have heard of some of the things I contributed a lot to. That’s beside the point. This is like saying “I’d prefer if doctors took their time with patients to understand their cases and provide meaningful accurate resolutions to ailments instead of rushing” and you replying with ”oh yeah, are you willing to contribute with medicine and triage?”.
  - bbkane 6mo ago
    I think there's a balance to be struck between code quality and delivery speed. GNU Hurd is a well known example where they spent a so much time on getting the code right that the project became irrelevant. And of course you made the case for erring on the "too much code too quickly" side
    - latexr 6mo ago
      The comment I responded to talked of “speedrun” and “full speed ahead”. That’s the antithesis of balance. The point you’re making is valid but has no bearing on the current conversation. GNU Hurd is also an extreme case, the overwhelming majority of software suffers more from being rushed than from being so slow it becomes irrelevant.
- isametry 6mo ago
  >chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly Blink (Chrome) is not WebKit. If anything, the duopoly is Blink and WebKit at places 1 and 2 respectively. Firefox is at around 3% market share. There’s no “-poly” to Gecko at all.
  - rhdunn 6mo ago
    Blink is derived from WebKit, so is in the same family like the other Blink/WebKit derived browsers. Fireox/Gecko is a different browser implementation.
porridgeraisin 6mo ago
I don't really care for the language. But why is it following the GTK UI language ffs. Every gtk only gets worse.
- SkiFire13 6mo ago
  > Ladybird has a new Linux frontend built on GTK4 and libadwaita, sitting alongside the existing Qt frontend This is in addition to the already existing Qt frontend.
  - porridgeraisin 6mo ago
    Ah that's nice. Cool then.
SkiFire13 6mo ago
Why would yet another C++ browser be better than one written in a different language (this time Rust, but Zig would be cool too)?
nasso_dev 6mo ago
are you saying c++ can be used as a basis for other projects whereas rust cannot? ...why?
LeFantome 6mo ago
There are lots of C++ browsers, including Chromium. Happy to see Ladybird using the best tools. The RegEx and JavaScript interpreters are great places to use Rust for security reasons.
bbkane 6mo ago
In my opinion, Chromium has already filled that market. I actually think Ladybird should lean into Rust more so it can compete on speed but still stay safe and friendly to contributors (as hopefully the compiler will prevent most bugs). My hope is this will help them compete with tenets of "safe, fast, contributor-friendly and NOT owned by a corporation"
revengerwizard 6mo ago
I don't know, it's the third language they mention to introduce, first there was Swift, for whatever reason. I think they should be first focusing on getting to a first stable version before re-writing parts of the browser.

teruakohatu 6mo ago

If LLMs allow them to speedrun to an alternative mainstream browser, then full speed ahead. A third runner in this space would make the browser market a lot healthier than the current chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly.

latexr 6mo ago
I’d rather have a good browser which took its time to get things right than a speed run one. Too much software is written like that, and the result is that most things are shit. What are we in such a hurry for? To get more time to work more? Fucking chill. Do things slowly and right. As a side thought, speed running seems like the wrong analogy for software. Speed runners in games are people who spend a ton of time doing the exact same steps over and over to find tiny optimisations and develop muscle memory to do something repeatable. They take the time to do it well. Being a good speed runner means embracing slow progress. It’s the antithesis of software, where rushing to get it out also means you barely look at it. You do it fast but seldom right.
- TehCorwiz 6mo ago
  What are your thoughts on the current code quality? Have you had a chance to review it?
  - latexr 6mo ago
    I have, but that’s irrelevant. I’m commenting on the general sentiment, not any specific project.
- dirasieb 6mo ago
  are you willing to contribute time, money and code?
  - latexr 6mo ago
    Your argument is so removed from the point, it’s an entirely different conversation. I already contribute time and code to open source projects, and I promise you’ll have heard of some of the things I contributed a lot to. That’s beside the point. This is like saying “I’d prefer if doctors took their time with patients to understand their cases and provide meaningful accurate resolutions to ailments instead of rushing” and you replying with ”oh yeah, are you willing to contribute with medicine and triage?”.
- bbkane 6mo ago
  I think there's a balance to be struck between code quality and delivery speed. GNU Hurd is a well known example where they spent a so much time on getting the code right that the project became irrelevant. And of course you made the case for erring on the "too much code too quickly" side
  - latexr 6mo ago
    The comment I responded to talked of “speedrun” and “full speed ahead”. That’s the antithesis of balance. The point you’re making is valid but has no bearing on the current conversation. GNU Hurd is also an extreme case, the overwhelming majority of software suffers more from being rushed than from being so slow it becomes irrelevant.
isametry 6mo ago
>chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly Blink (Chrome) is not WebKit. If anything, the duopoly is Blink and WebKit at places 1 and 2 respectively. Firefox is at around 3% market share. There’s no “-poly” to Gecko at all.
- rhdunn 6mo ago
  Blink is derived from WebKit, so is in the same family like the other Blink/WebKit derived browsers. Fireox/Gecko is a different browser implementation.

porridgeraisin 6mo ago

I don't really care for the language. But why is it following the GTK UI language ffs. Every gtk only gets worse.

SkiFire13 6mo ago
> Ladybird has a new Linux frontend built on GTK4 and libadwaita, sitting alongside the existing Qt frontend This is in addition to the already existing Qt frontend.
- porridgeraisin 6mo ago
  Ah that's nice. Cool then.

SkiFire13 6mo ago

Why would yet another C++ browser be better than one written in a different language (this time Rust, but Zig would be cool too)?

nasso_dev 6mo ago

are you saying c++ can be used as a basis for other projects whereas rust cannot? ...why?

LeFantome 6mo ago

There are lots of C++ browsers, including Chromium. Happy to see Ladybird using the best tools. The RegEx and JavaScript interpreters are great places to use Rust for security reasons.

bbkane 6mo ago

In my opinion, Chromium has already filled that market. I actually think Ladybird should lean into Rust more so it can compete on speed but still stay safe and friendly to contributors (as hopefully the compiler will prevent most bugs). My hope is this will help them compete with tenets of "safe, fast, contributor-friendly and NOT owned by a corporation"

revengerwizard 6mo ago

I don't know, it's the third language they mention to introduce, first there was Swift, for whatever reason. I think they should be first focusing on getting to a first stable version before re-writing parts of the browser.