10 ms·

Servo: The Countdown Continues

140 points by Manishearth 11y ago

DiabloD3 11y ago
Servo becoming part of a modern browser gives me a serious boner. Chrome and Firefox are both significantly working on trying to make sane multi-threaded models, and they often either end up with insane ones, or end up with sane ones that don't perform usefully any better than having left it single threaded in the first place. I just wish that Chrome would fix performance on OSX. I have no issues on Windows or Android (of course), but OSX it just seems way slower than it should be on a lot of normal tasks. I mean, literally, the only reason I use Chrome is because of synced tabs, history, and bookmarks built into the browser and having access to that on Android too, purely all the integration into the phone features (I have a Nexus 5). To hijack my own reply here, where Microsoft is going with Windows 10, if they really hit off, I'd consider a future Lumia model to replace my Nexus 5, because Project Spartan seems to be catching MSIE up to what Firefox+FirefoxOS and Chrome+Android do now. Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted here. I'm pro-Servo.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewchambers 11y ago
  I think it was the phrase "serious boner"
  - hueving 11y ago
    Is it because all boners are very serious, thus making the phrase pointlessly redundant?
- gcb0 11y ago
  wow. the tabsync reason is hard to swalow for me. i use delicious (it is still around) with the android app. you just 'share' a url. work with any browser you want to use, on any platform (firefox,IE,Cr,windows,linux,iOS,Android). it also incentives you to organize your bookmarks. it is not as convenient on speed, but it surely makes up for it by just adding an account you care nothing for on every device (instead of one that can access your emails/contacts/etc). And i don't want to have my living room tv browser in sync while i read on the bathroom.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    I'm another person who doesn't want my tabs to sync. Partly because I have too many of them.
    - gnur 11y ago
      I don't want my tabs to directly sync, but I do want the option to open the tabs on my phone that I have open on my desktop. Also, it is really convenient to have auto completion on urls that I frequently open on either device.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    Tab sync is not about having the stuff you see on one browser show up on the other, but about being able to bring up the tabs from another device. Delicious to my knowledge does not fix that because (unless something has changed) it depends on you actively bookmarking something. Typical use case: I have to run out of the office, and suddenly remember I need the address to that place I was looking at. Tap the tab symbol, and find the tab from my office desktop, and I have it without having to search. I agree with you it'd be nice to add an account that is separate from all my other stuff, but tab syncing is one of those features that you'll likely not use much, but when you happen to want it, it can be immensely useful.
- farresito 11y ago
  Chrome in Linux doesn't work too well, either. It has some memory leaks. I just switched to Firefox. Tab sync doesn't work too well, either. I've found that if I have more than 10 tabs or so opened in my phone, it won't sync all of them; it will only sync the ones it pleases. You would have to visit them one by one as to have them synced. Not to say that Chrome uses an insane amount of memory, almost two times the amount Firefox does (at least here in ArchLinux).
- bad_user 11y ago
  If you're an Android user, you're missing out on Firefox Mobile. I'm using Firefox on my Android, it's quite good and it's the only mobile browser I know that does extensions, so you can have AdBlock Plus or uBlock with it. If you're using Firefox on your desktop as well, it will sync your history and bookmarks: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/ Android is the only mobile OS that Firefox supports and this is because Firefox has been impossible to distribute on both iOS and Windows Phone, due to either marketplace or technical restrictions. Out of the popular mobile OSes, Android has been the only one that isn't defective by design. And unfortunately I'm not seeing Microsoft follow suit, as they are going in the opposite direction and sorry to be grim, but I view project spartan to be just a marketing stunt.
  - Refefer 11y ago
    Fiefdoms make money for the lord of the manor
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    I'm aware Firefox can do tab, bookmark, and history sync. However, Firefox on Android cannot be deeply integrated like Chrome is on my Nexus 5, and last time I tried Firefox Android it had a weird UI and didn't look like a native Android app either. Also, the lack of Chromecast support in Firefox is also making it difficult to use on the desktop.
    - wlesieutre 11y ago
      Deeply integrated how? Am I missing things by using FF instead of Chrome? (not a Nexus device) EDIT: I see that Chrome is "deeply integrated" with my phone in the sense that it can't be uninstalled, but I'm sure that's not what you mean...
      - DiabloD3 11y ago
        Tabs now appear in the recent apps list (which can be shut off and turn back into normal tabs in Chrome), and it seems to be tied heavily into Google Now (though I'm not sure which parts are which). Chrome on a Nexus device is a lot like Firefox on a FirefoxOS device, if that makes any sense.
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  > I mean, literally, the only reason I use Chrome is because of synced tabs, history, and bookmarks built into the browser and having access to that on Android too Incidentally, Firefox/Firefox for Android has all of that. Also, with end to end encryption.
  - e12e 11y ago
    While I user Firefox on desktop and on Android -- it doesn't actually have synced tabs, does it? (And I'm glad, I have ~100 tabs open in 2-3 tab groups on desktop -- I don't really need/want them all on mobile). But the rest of the sync (including history) is very useful.
- _pmf_ 11y ago
  > but OSX it just seems way slower than it should be on a lot of normal tasks. Well, given that Apple proved that it does no longer any shit about OSX by having the audacity of releasing their Yosemite train wreck to the end user, I would not expect any 3rd party vendor to give a shit either.
tinganho 11y ago
I'm just hoping someone will create a new Electron (used in Atom), but based on Servo instead of Chromium.
- ed_blackburn 11y ago
  I wonder if Electron will evolve to permit different engines? blink, Edge?, servo? Whilst this offers options, my concern would be over complicating Electron with a plethora of abstractions some of which maybe leaky as engines innovate and diverge.
  - glandium 11y ago
    Wouldn't Microsoft have interest in doing that, though, for Visual Studio Code?
    - ed_blackburn 11y ago
      Perhaps. Or perhaps they're satisfied that the Chromium engine is sufficient. As I understand it the goal of Visual Studio Code is to be cross platform and bring .NET to a wider audience. The engine is immaterial? WE shall see though. Perhaps Full Fat Windows only Visual Studio will borrow from Visual Studio Code and require a different engine, to play nice with Direct X, or other Windows proprietary tech?
- dubcanada 11y ago
  It's very tightly integrated with V8. The UI/non JS part of it can be easily replaced with what ever,
monk_e_boy 11y ago
How will developer tools work with servo? A plugin?
- jgraham 11y ago
  Servo currently has a (partial) implementation of the Firefox developer tools protocol. This means that you can use Firefox devtools to inspect a servo instance in the same way that you would a mobile device. In the long term if and when Servo is incorporated into actual products this story will likely change somewhat.
pjmlp 11y ago
> servo = !!dlsym(NULL, "servo_test"); I just cry when I see something like this.
- robsun 11y ago
  Ufff I thought I am weird because I had same thoughts.
- simias 11y ago
  May I ask why? It doesn't look quite terrible to me (as much as I can judge out of context).
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    It doesn't express the real intention of the code. Uses C implicit conversions between pointers, integral and boolean operators for something that would be clearly better expressed with an if (). This type of code wouldn't survive the type of code reviews I used to do.
    - andrewchambers 11y ago
      except it is actually fairly common and once you have seen it once it is really clear.
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        Fairly common by developers that don't have to maintain code from others. Clarity trumps clever tricks. EDIT: To make it clear, if I am reviewing someone's C code, I'll be applying MISRA and Code Complete style rules.
        andrewchambers 11y ago
        I first saw this trick in the qemu source code.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cgcardona 11y ago
It's worth mentioning that getting Servo to build and run on OS X is very straight forward and worked for me the first time. Here is the github repo: https://github.com/servo/servo https://github.com/servo/servo Here is this HackerNews thread rendered in Servo: http://i.imgur.com/6yvrr3V.png http://i.imgur.com/6yvrr3V.png
- Manishearth 11y ago
  You should also try https://github.com/glennw/servo-shell https://github.com/glennw/servo-shell (it's a webpage, and you don't need to rebuild servo or anything though building it in release mode is preferred), which gives you a browser experience.

140 points by Manishearth 11y ago

Servo becoming part of a modern browser gives me a serious boner. Chrome and Firefox are both significantly working on trying to make sane multi-threaded models, and they often either end up with insane ones, or end up with sane ones that don't perform usefully any better than having left it single threaded in the first place. I just wish that Chrome would fix performance on OSX. I have no issues on Windows or Android (of course), but OSX it just seems way slower than it should be on a lot of normal tasks. I mean, literally, the only reason I use Chrome is because of synced tabs, history, and bookmarks built into the browser and having access to that on Android too, purely all the integration into the phone features (I have a Nexus 5). To hijack my own reply here, where Microsoft is going with Windows 10, if they really hit off, I'd consider a future Lumia model to replace my Nexus 5, because Project Spartan seems to be catching MSIE up to what Firefox+FirefoxOS and Chrome+Android do now. Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted here. I'm pro-Servo.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
andrewchambers 11y ago
I think it was the phrase "serious boner"
- hueving 11y ago
  Is it because all boners are very serious, thus making the phrase pointlessly redundant?
gcb0 11y ago
wow. the tabsync reason is hard to swalow for me. i use delicious (it is still around) with the android app. you just 'share' a url. work with any browser you want to use, on any platform (firefox,IE,Cr,windows,linux,iOS,Android). it also incentives you to organize your bookmarks. it is not as convenient on speed, but it surely makes up for it by just adding an account you care nothing for on every device (instead of one that can access your emails/contacts/etc). And i don't want to have my living room tv browser in sync while i read on the bathroom.
- pjc50 11y ago
  I'm another person who doesn't want my tabs to sync. Partly because I have too many of them.
  - gnur 11y ago
    I don't want my tabs to directly sync, but I do want the option to open the tabs on my phone that I have open on my desktop. Also, it is really convenient to have auto completion on urls that I frequently open on either device.
- vidarh 11y ago
  Tab sync is not about having the stuff you see on one browser show up on the other, but about being able to bring up the tabs from another device. Delicious to my knowledge does not fix that because (unless something has changed) it depends on you actively bookmarking something. Typical use case: I have to run out of the office, and suddenly remember I need the address to that place I was looking at. Tap the tab symbol, and find the tab from my office desktop, and I have it without having to search. I agree with you it'd be nice to add an account that is separate from all my other stuff, but tab syncing is one of those features that you'll likely not use much, but when you happen to want it, it can be immensely useful.
farresito 11y ago
Chrome in Linux doesn't work too well, either. It has some memory leaks. I just switched to Firefox. Tab sync doesn't work too well, either. I've found that if I have more than 10 tabs or so opened in my phone, it won't sync all of them; it will only sync the ones it pleases. You would have to visit them one by one as to have them synced. Not to say that Chrome uses an insane amount of memory, almost two times the amount Firefox does (at least here in ArchLinux).
bad_user 11y ago
If you're an Android user, you're missing out on Firefox Mobile. I'm using Firefox on my Android, it's quite good and it's the only mobile browser I know that does extensions, so you can have AdBlock Plus or uBlock with it. If you're using Firefox on your desktop as well, it will sync your history and bookmarks: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/ Android is the only mobile OS that Firefox supports and this is because Firefox has been impossible to distribute on both iOS and Windows Phone, due to either marketplace or technical restrictions. Out of the popular mobile OSes, Android has been the only one that isn't defective by design. And unfortunately I'm not seeing Microsoft follow suit, as they are going in the opposite direction and sorry to be grim, but I view project spartan to be just a marketing stunt.
- Refefer 11y ago
  Fiefdoms make money for the lord of the manor
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  I'm aware Firefox can do tab, bookmark, and history sync. However, Firefox on Android cannot be deeply integrated like Chrome is on my Nexus 5, and last time I tried Firefox Android it had a weird UI and didn't look like a native Android app either. Also, the lack of Chromecast support in Firefox is also making it difficult to use on the desktop.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    Deeply integrated how? Am I missing things by using FF instead of Chrome? (not a Nexus device) EDIT: I see that Chrome is "deeply integrated" with my phone in the sense that it can't be uninstalled, but I'm sure that's not what you mean...
    - DiabloD3 11y ago
      Tabs now appear in the recent apps list (which can be shut off and turn back into normal tabs in Chrome), and it seems to be tied heavily into Google Now (though I'm not sure which parts are which). Chrome on a Nexus device is a lot like Firefox on a FirefoxOS device, if that makes any sense.
Brakenshire 11y ago
> I mean, literally, the only reason I use Chrome is because of synced tabs, history, and bookmarks built into the browser and having access to that on Android too Incidentally, Firefox/Firefox for Android has all of that. Also, with end to end encryption.
- e12e 11y ago
  While I user Firefox on desktop and on Android -- it doesn't actually have synced tabs, does it? (And I'm glad, I have ~100 tabs open in 2-3 tab groups on desktop -- I don't really need/want them all on mobile). But the rest of the sync (including history) is very useful.
_pmf_ 11y ago
> but OSX it just seems way slower than it should be on a lot of normal tasks. Well, given that Apple proved that it does no longer any shit about OSX by having the audacity of releasing their Yosemite train wreck to the end user, I would not expect any 3rd party vendor to give a shit either.

tinganho 11y ago

I'm just hoping someone will create a new Electron (used in Atom), but based on Servo instead of Chromium.

ed_blackburn 11y ago
I wonder if Electron will evolve to permit different engines? blink, Edge?, servo? Whilst this offers options, my concern would be over complicating Electron with a plethora of abstractions some of which maybe leaky as engines innovate and diverge.
- glandium 11y ago
  Wouldn't Microsoft have interest in doing that, though, for Visual Studio Code?
  - ed_blackburn 11y ago
    Perhaps. Or perhaps they're satisfied that the Chromium engine is sufficient. As I understand it the goal of Visual Studio Code is to be cross platform and bring .NET to a wider audience. The engine is immaterial? WE shall see though. Perhaps Full Fat Windows only Visual Studio will borrow from Visual Studio Code and require a different engine, to play nice with Direct X, or other Windows proprietary tech?
dubcanada 11y ago
It's very tightly integrated with V8. The UI/non JS part of it can be easily replaced with what ever,

monk_e_boy 11y ago

How will developer tools work with servo? A plugin?

jgraham 11y ago
Servo currently has a (partial) implementation of the Firefox developer tools protocol. This means that you can use Firefox devtools to inspect a servo instance in the same way that you would a mobile device. In the long term if and when Servo is incorporated into actual products this story will likely change somewhat.

pjmlp 11y ago

> servo = !!dlsym(NULL, "servo_test"); I just cry when I see something like this.

robsun 11y ago
Ufff I thought I am weird because I had same thoughts.
simias 11y ago
May I ask why? It doesn't look quite terrible to me (as much as I can judge out of context).
- pjmlp 11y ago
  It doesn't express the real intention of the code. Uses C implicit conversions between pointers, integral and boolean operators for something that would be clearly better expressed with an if (). This type of code wouldn't survive the type of code reviews I used to do.
  - andrewchambers 11y ago
    except it is actually fairly common and once you have seen it once it is really clear.
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      Fairly common by developers that don't have to maintain code from others. Clarity trumps clever tricks. EDIT: To make it clear, if I am reviewing someone's C code, I'll be applying MISRA and Code Complete style rules.
      - andrewchambers 11y ago
        I first saw this trick in the qemu source code.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

cgcardona 11y ago

It's worth mentioning that getting Servo to build and run on OS X is very straight forward and worked for me the first time. Here is the github repo: https://github.com/servo/servo https://github.com/servo/servo Here is this HackerNews thread rendered in Servo: http://i.imgur.com/6yvrr3V.png http://i.imgur.com/6yvrr3V.png

Manishearth 11y ago
You should also try https://github.com/glennw/servo-shell https://github.com/glennw/servo-shell (it's a webpage, and you don't need to rebuild servo or anything though building it in release mode is preferred), which gives you a browser experience.