Now, I really like competition in the software space, and have been quite annoyed with the dominance of chromium/WebKit..
But it really looks like they're trying to solve the wrong problem here. The issue isn't that browsers are slow, its that the WEBSITES are. On the modern internet many soydevs can't even make a simple blog without using megabytes of JavaScript or PHP, no wonder its slow!
What Flow is trying to do is more like pushing the issue under the bed and letting websites become even more resource intensive.
Now, I know it would probably be quite hard, but imo what we really need is a better web-oriented programming language to solve the real issue of slow websites. (Not an expert on this though, maybe there's some secret reason that js is the best lol)
Edit: Yup, that's *exactly* what flow is doing. Right there, front and center.
If you're making something like a blog, personal website, a cooking website, or something that's just text + some images/videos you can make it in 100% HTML+CSS, you can even make it look pretty nice. For example [based.cooking](https://based.cooking) is a cooking website that's literally just HTML and a bit of CSS, works perfectly well
The real killer is the front-end development libraries like React and Vue. They are great in terms of what they allow developers to do, but add a shitload of overhead.
Doesn't appear to be open source. I can't find any information about what language this was written in. I'd hope that they had chosen Rust, because I do think going the C++ route these days is a bit outdated.
[Their reasoning for not being open source seems nonsensical](https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/01/new_browser_on.html):
>There’s no current plan for that as we don’t have a large corporation backing our development.
As though having a large corporation behind you is the determinant factor behind being open source or not. The two have no correlation.
Inheritance is a good model for UI development. Maybe the only time you should use Inheritance over composition. Rust refuses to implement it completely. I'm gonna say it's a toss up between the two. I would probably still go C++ just with modern C++. But I like the syntax more. I can see why you would rather use Rust. Cargo is light years ahead of CMake
You can't steal an open source project. If that were the case, Microsoft would have already "stolen" Linux. They can make a monetized version, but they'd still have to open-source it. That's what copyleft is about.
the rust compiler is way too slow, so wouldn't really work here
there are some big projects with rust but they all use custom build systems to circumvent the issue
rust is an extremely complex language behind the scene so its not as easy as you may think. while it would be easier to make then a full blown web browser it would still require a lot of maintenance given rust is still very young
20 comments
11 u/Jalapeno_gringo 15 Mar 2021 15:35
4 u/PATRIOTSRADIOSIGNALS 16 Mar 2021 01:35
9 u/jBoi76 15 Mar 2021 16:33
5 u/_xy0_ 15 Mar 2021 19:24
4 u/jBoi76 15 Mar 2021 21:37
3 u/JohnnyMemeonic 15 Mar 2021 23:08
2 u/Madje 15 Mar 2021 23:11
2 u/NitroglycerinLtd 15 Mar 2021 22:09
2 u/RootHouston 16 Mar 2021 18:19
4 u/RootHouston 15 Mar 2021 15:30
3 u/None [OP] 15 Mar 2021 15:39
1 u/RootHouston 16 Mar 2021 18:17
3 u/RustyLumberjack 15 Mar 2021 16:26
2 u/RootHouston 16 Mar 2021 18:17
2 u/ZippyTheFox 15 Mar 2021 16:40
1 u/PauloBoks 15 Mar 2021 17:31
1 u/RootHouston 16 Mar 2021 18:18
1 u/PauloBoks 16 Mar 2021 21:37
1 u/None [OP] 15 Mar 2021 21:27