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Mozilla Releases First Build of Servo, Its Next-Generation Browser Engine (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As promised, Mozilla has released the first Nightly build of Servo, its new browser engine. This is the first tech demo of Servo, which Jack Moffitt, Servo project lead at Mozilla, described to us a few months ago as "a next-generation browser engine focused on performance and robustness." Packages for macOS and Linux are available to download from here: Servo Developer Preview Downloads. Mozilla promises that Windows and Android packages will be available "soon." And because this is Mozilla, you can check out all the code yourself over on GitHub.
Rust does have a purpose: the power of C++ but with built-in safety mechanisms.
"Just program C++ well and it will be safe," the critics say. Unfortunately in the real world that doesn't happen often enough because not everybody is a flawless programmer. And so, what's wrong with making the tool safer?
Also, in what way are they "forcing the world onto it"? Is somebody holding a gun to your head and making you use it?
While I generally have a positive opinion historically of Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox I find them to be a little two faced at times.
They claim prominently on their website to care about privacy yet make it extraordinarily difficult to configure the browser not to continuously call home. Even when you follow their expansive instructions it still doesn't stop it and the sheer volume of reasons or excuses implemented in the browser and enabled by default is comically mind boggling.
Then there is the matter of "We follow the Rust Code of Conduct." which essentially codifies coddling, censorship and intolerance.
It is nice to see them doing *something* about the ease of discovering exploits in their current codebase. If it works without downsides it will be awesome for users.
Fewer.
Probably from George Sorros for promoting Social Justice
I was going to ream you for choosing your web browser based on its underlying programming language. After all, if you're not having to interface with it as a plugin-developer, what does it matter?
Then I remembered: security. Relying on a human programmer to get every memory allocation and deallocation right every single time has proven to be a security nightmare for the past 20 years the internet has been accessible by the general public. The more safety checks you can push down into the underlying platform/language/runtime/API, the fewer security holes you'll have.
And if you need proof that your standard, mature languages aren't cutting it, look no further than Symantec's recent debacle. If kernel programmers at the world's premiere security firm can't get it right, who can?
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Go into your browser settings and set flash to "ask to activate".
Holy fuck does it make the web browsing experience better.
Probably because they were inventing Rust at the same time they were using it to write Servo.
Stannis? I thought you were dead.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Why is there such a difference?
Slashdot has devolved into a fetid backwater of malcontent cubical trolls; most of the stories aren't even technical in nature, and the technical stories get the least attention from commentors. Rust isn't some hipster fancy Mozilla is playing with for fun. It's an amazing language developed by brilliant designers over many years and it is attracting a lot of smart people because it offers a great deal to professionals that aren't afraid to learn and aren't threatened by new, better tools. Toxic and irrational people like the GP aren't welcome at Hacker News and they tend to do poorly there.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
So why is Servo so bad?
Browsers are hard. I remember the early days of Firefox, then "Firebird." It was terrible, crashy alpha software and completely unusable for years. And that was based on a "mature" language; they weren't developing the implementation language in parallel. The "browser" problem today is an order of magnitude more difficult because a browser is vastly more complex than it was 15+ years ago; browsers must precisely implement a much larger body of legacy and contemporary "standards" and do so with excellent performance on a much larger spectrum of devices.
Why isn't Rust letting them develop Servo faster and better?
Rust only reached 1.0 13 months ago; most of Servo development has been based on a rapidly moving target while trying to hit a rapidly moving target. Other than the fact that Rust isn't miraculous — and no one has ever claimed it is — the current state of Servo doesn't really tell us much about Rust.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
they said exactly the same damn thing about Java and how it was going to change the world when it came out. Ditto C#.
I'd be thrilled If Rust became as important as Java and C#. Those have been hugely influential and important languages. They must have known what they were talking about, and if they are right again Rust will be a wonderful success.
C & C++ still keep on trucking
If the only thing Rust accomplishes is to force improvements to these legacy languages (as it apparently already is) is will be a great contribution. I happen to think it will become more than that, and even as C/C++ continue to evolve and improve, as I'm sure they will, I'm happy, because I have this amazing ability to learn, use and appreciate more than one language.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Firefox doesn't leak memory like a sieve, and hasn't since somewhere around version 7 before they managed to find a miracle cure for the shitty addons of that time. Now you really have to have bad luck to get it leaking memory like a sieve: shitty drivers, shitty addons/plugins, shitty third-party apps plugging into it, etc. Anyone claiming to the contrary has yet to prove it, though they like to bandy the claim about regardless.
browsers must precisely implement a much larger body of legacy and contemporary "standards" and do so with excellent performance on a much larger spectrum of devices.
If that were "all" they had to do the job would be much, much easier than it is. The real problem lies in the clause you need to add: "... and also gracefully handle the astonishing and manifold varieties of bizzarely broken, nonstandard, evil, and often just plain utter shit-content that web servers routinely vomit forth when queried."
I wish I had mod points; Both your comments are well-stated and you seem to be the only mature sensible poster who knows what he's talking about, and not just spitting out swear words without substance.
I've been a loyal Netscape follower and then following Mozilla since they released the source, and I've contributed with bug reports and test cases from the early days of the milestone releases. I switched from using Netscape to Mozilla, even during the unstable and buggy release period.
However, I don't remember Phoenix being terribly crashy or alpha, that was prior to Phoenix was created as a subset of the entire Mozilla-suite (which included composer / irc chat / email / etc).
Nonetheless, you're right about everything else, especially the enormous complexity of modern-day browsers and how the complexity is only increasing.
I think it wouldn't be too outrageous to say that browsers are becoming like operating systems in their own right - in terms of complexity (not necessarily hardware interaction).
And it annoys me hugely when people compare Firefox to Chrome or even Safari, both of which are supported by multi-billion dollar corporate empires, while Firefox is supported by a tiny group of people under a non-profit charity and with only a miniscule of funding.
Yes, people have a right to complain to some extent, but at the same time, need to be grateful and realise who Mozilla is, and how much they've done for us and the open web and pushing everyone else to closely follow the standards!