3 ms·

I can't stress enough how discouraging is the fact that browsers rely on so complex standard body. And current way they evolve leave little hope. It definitely

I can't stress enough how discouraging is the fact that browsers rely on so complex standard body. And current way they evolve leave little hope. It definitely benefits web in a way, but rising complexity makes for a security nightmare and i wonder how close it brings browsers as a kind of software to limits of sanity and comprehension.

pcwalton 12y ago
> It definitely benefits web in a way, but rising complexity makes for a security nightmare and i wonder how close it brings browsers as a kind of software to limits of sanity and comprehension. Note that this is much of the idea behind Rust (which is used by this series): browsers are too large and difficult for humans to guard against the presence of vulnerabilities, so we use software (i.e. compilers) to do it. Compilers have a much longer attention span than humans do. Sandboxing can also achieve this, although at a much more coarse-grained level.
- hrjet 12y ago
  I am excited to hear "sandboxing" in this context. Does rust have sandboxing by any chance on the roadmap?
  - pcwalton 12y ago
    Servo does.
- basiliothecat 12y ago
  As much as i love anything that aids fighting the complexity, i think that it's best to address the root cause. That said, i don't have any strategy at hand regarding browser complexity, but i believe as it gets more prominent, the change will come. At least i hope that the browser i'll be running in 5 years would be a saner piece of software.
jarpineh 12y ago
Yes, it feels like it's only getting more complex and for the sake of somewhat limited use cases (like your basic JSON/HTML editor apps, or displaying data fastly). What I'd like to see is support for more general, compiler supporting infrastructure. A platform where you could develop your domain specific languages and data structures that are then transformed to native environment. Kind of like JavaScript is used as a transpiler target, but you still need to have loads of functionality on top of browser base. Then there could be ways to tag your data with semantics (this text is a heading, this is a link), accessibility, editorial intents (text select, copy/paste) that browser could use to display for specific devices and provide interaction (typing, touch). Since browser is a place to present and produce almost everything digital, not one standard body nor a standard can provide this. HTML/JS/CSS was borne into what it is today for few, narrowly scoped purposes and is creakingly, laboriously converted into different thing each time you open a web app.

pcwalton 12y ago

> It definitely benefits web in a way, but rising complexity makes for a security nightmare and i wonder how close it brings browsers as a kind of software to limits of sanity and comprehension. Note that this is much of the idea behind Rust (which is used by this series): browsers are too large and difficult for humans to guard against the presence of vulnerabilities, so we use software (i.e. compilers) to do it. Compilers have a much longer attention span than humans do. Sandboxing can also achieve this, although at a much more coarse-grained level.

hrjet 12y ago
I am excited to hear "sandboxing" in this context. Does rust have sandboxing by any chance on the roadmap?
- pcwalton 12y ago
  Servo does.
basiliothecat 12y ago
As much as i love anything that aids fighting the complexity, i think that it's best to address the root cause. That said, i don't have any strategy at hand regarding browser complexity, but i believe as it gets more prominent, the change will come. At least i hope that the browser i'll be running in 5 years would be a saner piece of software.

jarpineh 12y ago

Yes, it feels like it's only getting more complex and for the sake of somewhat limited use cases (like your basic JSON/HTML editor apps, or displaying data fastly). What I'd like to see is support for more general, compiler supporting infrastructure. A platform where you could develop your domain specific languages and data structures that are then transformed to native environment. Kind of like JavaScript is used as a transpiler target, but you still need to have loads of functionality on top of browser base. Then there could be ways to tag your data with semantics (this text is a heading, this is a link), accessibility, editorial intents (text select, copy/paste) that browser could use to display for specific devices and provide interaction (typing, touch). Since browser is a place to present and produce almost everything digital, not one standard body nor a standard can provide this. HTML/JS/CSS was borne into what it is today for few, narrowly scoped purposes and is creakingly, laboriously converted into different thing each time you open a web app.