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Safari is released to the world
- jpxxx 14y agoThe KHTML library (as wrapped by KFM) was surprisingly usable back in the day on Linux. But who'da thunk it'd turn into one of the most important pieces of code in the world? Congrats to all involved.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jcitme 14y agoSpeaking of which, how is the KHTML (not webkit) code now?
- rogerbinns 14y agoWikpedia has one paragraph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit#Origins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit#Origins "However, the exchange of code patches between the two branches of KHTML has previously been difficult and the code base diverged because both projects had different approaches in coding." It has a link to this post http://blogs.kde.org/node/1001 http://blogs.kde.org/node/1001 from 2005 saying there isn't much hope. It would be nice to have a 2013 update.
- wheels 14y agoI can't comment on the state of things today, but I was active an active KDE core developer at the time from that original message to the time of the Zack's blog post (and I'm friends with both Dirk and Zack): There was a huge amount of excitement at the announcement that Safari would be using KHTML. At that time, it was almost a given that the OSS rendering engine was Gecko. KHTML was KDE's little engine that could. But nobody ever expected it to be picked up by other folks. One of the original parts of the KHTML-to-OS X port was KWQ (pronounced, "quack") that abstracted out the KDE API portions that were used in KHTML. Folks were pretty ecstatic at first. It seemed very validating. But that changed quickly. As Zack's post indicates, WebKit became a thing of unmergable code-drops. Even inside of the KDE community there became a split between the KHTML purists and the WebKit faction. They'd previously more or less all been KHTML developers, but post-WebKit there was something of a pragmatists vs. idealists split. Zack fell on the latter side of that (for understandable reasons: there was an existing community project, with its own set of values, and that was hijacked to a large extent by WebKit). A few years later WebKit transformed itself into a more or less valid open source project (see webkit.org), but that didn't close the rift in the KDE community between the two, at that point rather divergent, rendering engines. There's still some remaining melancholy that stems from that initial hope and what could have potentially been, but wasn't. It's hard to argue that WebKit being open source has been a bad thing -- in fact, I don't believe that in the slightest. But I can also understand that it's pretty head-turning to have have a project transform in that way, especially for the original contributors (though, it should be noted, the original author of KHTML, who wasn't really active at the time of the transition, did eventually fall into the WebKit camp). Final note: this is just my somewhat fractured recollection of things from being in KDE community. My contributions to KHTML / WebKit were very minor (the original spellchecking support) so this may not jive completely with the folks that were closer.
- parfe 14y ago>one of the most important pieces of code in the world Well, that's certainly over the top. Safari is a commodity.
- Nelson69 14y agoSafari, Chrome, all the non-Windows phones (iOS, android, bada, blackberry, and webOS) and some lesser uses. I think some of the embedded Netflix implementations use it. It's pretty important.
- parfe 14y agoApple paid someone to hack on KHTML (In a most unfriendly manner) and Safari somehow becomes some of the most important code on the planet? Apple fans are a bit delusional. If Safari magically disappeared today Mozilla would notice a bump in downloads and everyone would go with their day.
- micampe 14y agoNot Safari, WebKit.
- mikeash 14y agoA few hundred million iOS and Android devices would no longer be able to access the web.
- parfe 14y agoFor about 8 seconds before Android users downloaded Firefox. iOS on the other hand is a prison so I suppose those users would just be screwed.
- mikeash 14y agoWhat exactly is your argument, that it's not important because people could use something else if they had to? Does anything qualify as "important" with that definition?
- thejosh 14y agoThis was posted a week ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006397 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006397 And reposted 2 days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026440 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5026440 edit: I'm an idiot, didn't read the post properly.
- ghiculescu 14y agoThis is a different post.
- halayli 14y agoread
- mxxx 14y agoYeah there's a whole bunch of them, they're different posts. I guess a couple of the Safari team dudes have started blogging recently...
- mokus 14y agoInteresting. 2003 - Safari launches. 2013 - a salvo of blogs is fired. I'm thinking either an NDA just expired or a lot of folks are feeling nostalgic about the 10 year anniversary.
- donmelton 14y agoNeither, really. It's mostly because I retired.
- Danieru 14y agoSo I'm curious. As a young programmer with 1.5 years before entering the workforce I have to wonder what you plan to do. From my super young and inexperienced perspective retirement will just mean having more control over my programming. Is programming still super fun and adicting? So; what do you plan to do? A relaxed retirement? Occasional contracting? A startup? Open source? Quiting programming forever and travelling? Something a lot more reasonable than this false dichotomy?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- cubicle67 14y agolike webkit?
- johnpowell 14y agoThanks for these. It is awesome to see how the sausage is made.
- SeoxyS 14y agoThe email Don sent to the KDE mailing list at the conference is also very much worth reading: http://lists.kde.org/?m=104197092318639 http://lists.kde.org/?m=104197092318639
- pimeys 14y agoThere was also a great reply: > On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Vadim Plessky also wrote: >> It seems we are very close to take market share from Microsoft :-) > Keep on dreaming ;). Btw, markets are for selling, KDE is on the next > plazza giving software away for free to the poor, geeks and other > nonconformists (/me ducks). http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104205781123001&w=2 http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104205781123001&...
- bobbles 14y agoSo was the yelling just out of surprise that it wasnt Gecko? Or was someone pissed off that it was chosen?
- donmelton 14y agoSurprise, I would hope. :) And lack of recognition, I suppose.
- diminish 14y agoDon, i am trying to understand why you (not you in person but Apple) went the open source route for safari but not for itunes etc. Can it be that, at that moment when you made the decision, web sites 'made for internet explorer', were too many. And you wanted the rendering engine on Mac to be widespread by getting from and giving to an open source project.
- donmelton 14y agoI can't comment on iTunes. Remember, Safari is not open source. Only WebKit is.
- simonw 14y agoMaybe because a major component of iTunes is a DRM platform.
- pyre 14y ago1. iTunes started out as a music player. The iTunes Music Store came later. You can debate whether or not Steve was planning the iTunes Music Store from the beginning, but that's neither here nor there. 2. iTunes, at least in the beginning, was just a wrapper around the QuickTime framework.
- jfb 14y ago"2. iTunes, at least in the beginning, was just a wrapper around the QuickTime framework." There's more to it than that, but this touches on something; I really wish that something akin to QuickTime was available cross-platform. Yeah, it's crufty and strange warts that reveal Ugly Things are all over the place, but man, having a good AV API would make a lot of things better. ffmpeg is a very impressive achievement, but it's not the same thing.
- ambiguator 14y agoDon Melton, welcome to my bookmark folder.
- tvwonline 14y agoJust watched the Keynote announcement of Safari and I finally understand what 'Snapback' is (was?) I have been using a Mac since 2005 and never figured out what it did, then I stopped noticing it was even there.
- arrrg 14y agoToo late! The feature was removed (I think quite some time ago). Ok, admittedly it’s still there in the menu, but no longer given any space in the UI. I understood what it was but I also never used it. It sounds useful, but somehow isn’t for some reason, at least that’s the case for me. I wonder whether there were ever any number of people who really used the feature. That also goes to show that just having a useful feature isn’t enough. I think the problem with the feature is that it isn’t useful often enough. The common case when looking at search results is to open a page, see that it isn’t the right one and go back. So just hitting the back button once is quite often all that’s needed. Sometimes you will click through several pages before you notice that what you found isn’t quite right, but I would guess that in a majority of cases you will notice that immediately. Which means that just hitting the back button just works in a majority of cases and the Snapback function doesn’t provide any additional savings. Moreover, the back button is probably the single most used UI element in a web browser, so everyone is really used to using it. Switching to something else that does something similar in some situations but you are not used to is a painful transition. Also, the back button degrades gracefully: Just slamming on it until you are back where you want to also works. It might take a little more time, but it works. So in summary, the Snapback function is only rarely actually useful compared to the back button, and if it is the back button requires only a little more effort but also works. That’s why I think it doesn’t really work.
- philwelch 14y agoIt's also much less useful with tabbed browsing.
- wahnfrieden 14y agoChrome implemented this by showing the last history item with a different host at the bottom of the list that shows if you hold down on the back button.
- lominming 14y agoThanks for the story! Love to hear stories from the team when Chrome was first released.
- zopticity 14y agoSafari is one of the best browsers I've used. It led to a better web development. If it weren't for the webkit, the might look like it's stuck in the 1990s.
- gutnor 14y agoIt gave us something important: a third major engine (webkit in general). Standards really get taken seriously when there are more than 2 players.
- shellehs 14y agohardly using safari. it not so fast as chrome, not have so many productive add-ons as chrome and firefox, not so flexible and customizable as firefox, not so open and powerful as firefox.
- mcot2 14y agoChrome uses WebKit...
- beatgammit 14y agoBut it has V8... but hey, what do I know, I use Opera...
- shellehs 14y agomidori uses webkit too. it's not only fast , also lightweight, more than safari.
- veemjeem 14y agoright, so what mcot2 is saying is that you're using most of safari anyway. safari was just a thin shell on top of webkit. I'm sure apple spent most of it's time improving webkit and not much time making the UI shell around it.
- udp 14y agoYour browser preference really doesn't have anything to do with this article.
- dave1010uk 14y agoI'd like to hear about how WebKit went mobile for the iPhone. Eg if Apple worked with Nokia and their port of WebKit to Symbian, or started their own port from scratch.
- Yaggo 14y agoYou must be kidding.
- winter_blue 14y agoThe idea of Apple working with Nokia sound ridonkulous to you?
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoWebKit core gets commits from nearly every major hardware manufacturer and OS vendor that isn't Microsoft. Unless Apple's stripping all those commits out of spite, iOS WebKit contains code from Nokia, RIM, Samsung, HPalm, Google, and many others that might be seen as competitors otherwise.
- podperson 14y agoYou notably left out Adobe who use it for Adobe AIR.
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoAdobe is more or less neutral, though (they just want you to buy their tools). Apple, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, etc. all would very much like the others to cease existing; yet they're all contributing to a project that keeps each other on a level playing field (in the context of HTML/JS engines, anyway).
- podperson 14y agoI think the point is that Apple didn't treat Safari/Webkit as being a competitive advantage so much as nullifying a competitive disadvantage -- it was a defensive play, not an offensive play. (A nice analogy is Android, which Google developed out of fear they would miss out on the mobile market rather than out of any desire to "own" the mobile market. Google didn't want Apple or anyone else to own its destiny, just as Apple didn't want Microsoft to own its destiny.)
- IheartApplesDix 14y agoWow this is really great. Safari use is increasing all the time. KHTML originally came from KDE of Linux fame, and has good support for most HTML standards, making it a wonderful language to start with.
- nodesocket 14y ago2003 Safari keynote by the master himself, Steve Jobs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ZNXQujgXw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ZNXQujgXw It's so crazy to watch the demo, and see all the absolute crap websites back then. How far we have come. What will the web look like in another 10 years?
- meerita 14y agoThis story owns. I really enjoyed it. It brings a lot of clarity to the whole past. I hope more guys at Apple could share those stories.
- meerita 14y agoThis story owns. I really enjoyed it. It brings a lot of clarity to the whole past. I hope more guys at Apple could share those stories.
- michael_miller 14y agoDon, a great blog post! It's really fascinating to hear about what goes on between the inception of a project and its release at an Apple keynote. I would be interested in hearing more about the technical side of WebKit. How does it work at a high level? How are touch events handled? What fancy things are done (within your NDA restrictions) to make scrolling so fast on the iPhone? It would be really awesome if you wrote a series of blog posts talking about the structure of WebKit!
- ricardobeat 14y agowebkit.org has many posts detailing bits of the implementation. Here's a series on rendering: https://www.webkit.org/blog/114/webcore-rendering-i-the-basics/ https://www.webkit.org/blog/114/webcore-rendering-i-the-basi...
- bad_user 14y agoBreathtaking how a small project created by enthusiasts can change the world. I also loved the end of this post, WTF indeed :-)
- frozenport 14y agoWhy did Apple feel the need to make a web browser?
- flyinRyan 14y agoBecause the existing ones all sucked?
- chewxy 14y agoFrom Don Melton's Mouth [0]: We built our own browser because we didn't want to depend on another company for a critical application. We built our own browser engine because we wanted to use the technology in more things than a browser. We built that engine small and fast because Bertrand Serlet would have shot me if I had done otherwise. :) [0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006704 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006704
- podperson 14y agoApple had been dependent on Microsoft and Netscape for good browser options. Microsoft released IE5.5 for Mac which was neither IE5 nor IE6 compatible, and then nothing. Netscape gradually turned into a gigantic steaming pile of crap. I might add that Chimera -> Camino was the beacon of hope before Safari came out, and once it got going on Mac OS X, other folks got so excited they demanded a cross-platform version which eventually became Firefox. In general, the need for a non-sucky non-bloated web browser alternative to IE reached a critical mass at that time, not just on Mac OS X.
- sarvinc 14y ago"I might add that Chimera -> Camino was the beacon of hope before Safari came out, and once it got going on Mac OS X, other folks got so excited they demanded a cross-platform version which eventually became Firefox." I'd never heard this and I can't seem to find any references to it. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
- albertzeyer 14y agoWhat happened to KWQ? This looks like a great starting point when you want to port some KDE/Qt lib to native Cocoa. For example, I'm thinking about KDevelop, Amarok or others.
- lucian1900 14y agoNowadays there isn't much need to port, since Qt has a good native Cocoa backend.
- randallu 14y agoKWQ wasn't super easy to port to other platforms -- it's completely gone now and WebKit has much better abstractions.
- eertami 14y agoI enjoyed the CES keynote he linked to much more than any Apple keynote.
- kawsper 14y ago> But we did have great seats, just a few rows from the front — you didn’t want to be too close in case something really went wrong. I wonder what that means.
- ZeroGravitas 14y agoPossibly a reference to the time a camera didn't work for Steve during a keynote and got thrown (fairly swiftly) at/to an employee in the first row. http://youtu.be/mZG1ewSO0X4?t=1m10s http://youtu.be/mZG1ewSO0X4?t=1m10s
- enneff 14y agoI'm guessing that he didn't want it to be his sheepish face that Steve saw when searching for someone to blame.
- chiph 14y agoDon - you had several plugins available from launch - Flash, etc. How'd you do that without tipping your hand?
- SG- 14y agoThey were simply using the standard OSX browser plugins (the same Mozilla, Camino and IE used at the time).
- nossralf 14y agoSafari implements NPAPI [1] and could probably reuse any NPAPI plugin that existed on OS X at the time right off the bat. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI
- brown9-2 14y agoThe mention of needing to keep the project a secret makes me wonder what would have been so different about things had the news leaked. Let's say the browser user agent leaked or some enterprising reporter figured out what Apple was up to. What would have gone differently in that alternate universe?
- sazary 14y agomaybe nothing other than an angry steve and a not-that-fascinating-presentation.
- SG- 14y agoProbably some bad things, over the years certain project details have leaked right before the keynote (such as ATI pre-announcing a hardware release) and finding Apple switching to NVIDIA for the next few years.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- smackfu 14y agoWhy are there so few insider stories from Apple? Is it forever NDAs? Not many people retiring yet? Loyalty? These blog posts are really standing out as actually giving a view inside the company.
- podperson 14y agohttp://folklore.org/index.py http://folklore.org/index.py
- smackfu 14y agoSince those are all about original Mac from 30 years ago, that makes the "people only talk when they retire" seem more plausible.
- joezydeco 14y agoI hold hope that one day we'll have a folklore.org equivalent for the period where Steve returned to Apple up to the iPhone or thereabouts. Even a "Soul of a New Machine"-type book about the development of some products (iPod, iPhone, OSX) would be interesting. In either case, Don, thanks for these stories. Any insight at all into how the sausage gets made is a great read.
- DanBC 14y agoPeople may have heard of "Rock Family Trees" - you look at the members of bands and trace backwards (and forwards) to see all the other bands involved. Here's an example for Crosby Stills & Nash (http://familyofrock.com/browse/details/csny.html http://familyofrock.com/browse/details/csny.html) and one for Eric Clapton (http://familyofrock.com/browse/details/clapton.html http://familyofrock.com/browse/details/clapton.html) It could be interesting to do a "Start up family trees" to see the flow of people throughout the industry. > In either case, Don, thanks for these stories. Any insight at all into how the sausage gets made is a great read. Strongly agree.
- joezydeco 14y ago
- SG- 14y agoReading the part about him cringing on the demo made me think of this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/6/9/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/6/9/
- abdophoto 14y agoMan, what an incredible story. Thanks Don Melton!
- DigitalJack 14y agoMoney Quote: There’s nothing that can fill your underwear faster than seeing your product fail during a Steve Jobs demo.
- jlkinsel 14y agoawesome ending :)
- bulletmagnet 14y agoIt is ironic that the only Apple product we're getting an overdose of play-by-play insider information about development and launch is the one people care the least about: Safari.
- sbuk 14y agoAs pointed out earlier in the thread, the significance is not Safari but WebKit, which is now used by the majority of the software that is used to view web content. The reason WebKit was originally developed is Safari.