Comment by baybal2
3 years ago
It's now nearly impossible to build a web browser from scratch because of runaway explosion of web browser features, and proprietary API extensions.
W3C here is unfortunately a part to the problem.
Standardisation is good, but letting google pour streams halfassedly written RFCs onto other browsermakers is not good.
Non-enforcement of standards is also bad, and it's bad to extend W3C privileges to companies who themselves selectively implement their own proposals, so others' browsers can't match their behaviour.
Actually a from-scratch web browser is being built:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90611677/flow-ekioh-web-browser-...
Also you should take a look at the WHATWG because it’s far more relevant than the W3C nowadays.
"The total word count of the W3C specification catalogue is 114 million words at the time of writing. If you added the combined word counts of the C11, C++17, UEFI, USB 3.2, and POSIX specifications, all 8,754 published RFCs, and the combined word counts of everything on Wikipedia’s list of longest novels, you would be 12 million words short of the W3C specifications"
https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....
No idea how Flow does it, but building a browser is nearly impossible.
It's well known that Drew Devault count is meaningless since it includes dupes, drafts, and unrelated specs. Still, the space to cover for a from scratch browser is huge.
Flow didn't start "from scratch" recently, it's an evolution of a primarily SVG+CSS renderer for set top boxes. They also re-use Spidermonkey as their Javascript engine.
6 replies →
Flow browser isn't FOSS.
> WHATWG [is] far more relevant than the W3C nowadays.
Which is arguably part of the problem.