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Show HN: Vaev – A browser engine built from scratch (It renders google.com)

(github.com)
233 points monax | 8 comments | 18 May 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.937s | source | bottom

We’ve been working on Vaev, a minimal web browser engine built from scratch. It supports HTML/XHTML, the CSS cascade, @page rules for pagination, and print-to-PDF rendering. It even handles calc(), var(), and percentage units—and yes, it renders Google.com (mostly).

This is an experimental project focused on learning and exploration. Networking is basic (http:// and file:// only), and grid layouts aren’t supported yet, but we’re making progress fast.

We’d love your thoughts and feedback.

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danpalmer ◴[19 May 25 01:15 UTC] No.44025713[source]▶
I'm interested in why C++ was chosen for this? Browsers are notoriously hard to secure, they're effectively mean to be RCE vulnerabilities! Securing C++ binaries is hard and has in recent years been called out by numerous organisations and companies as being the root cause of many classes of security vulnerability. With languages like (but not limited to) Rust, we now have better options.
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1. zarzavat ◴[19 May 25 04:08 UTC] No.44026430[source]▶
There already is a Rust web engine, it's called Servo, and it's currently being overtaken by the C++ Ladybird project.

Rust is a bad language to write an open source browser in because the hardest problem of building a browser is not security but the number of people you can convince to work on it.

C++ programmers are a dime a dozen, there's a huge number of people who write C++ for 8 hours a day. The Rust community is mostly dabblers like myself.

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2. 01HNNWZ0MV43FF ◴[19 May 25 04:29 UTC] No.44026510[source]▶
I guess it's just me but after more than 10 years of C++ 8 hours a day I'm happy to never touch it for free
3. WD-42 ◴[19 May 25 06:22 UTC] No.44026953[source]▶
But ladybird is ditching c++ for swift?
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4. dtech ◴[19 May 25 06:27 UTC] No.44026975[source]▶
> it's currently being overtaken by the C++ Ladybird project.

Saying a mature engine that you can use today for ~all of the web is being "overtaken" by unreleased pre-alpha software is a strange definition of overtaking.

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5. zarzavat ◴[19 May 25 06:56 UTC] No.44027121[source]▶
Ladybird overtook Servo in WPT a few months ago and the gap is only increasing. Servo cannot match the development pace of Ladybird and Ladybird's access to the huge pool of C++ devs is everything to do with that.
6. zarzavat ◴[19 May 25 07:01 UTC] No.44027152[source]▶
AFAIU they are not ditching C++, they are exploring writing some parts of the engine in Swift using the new C++ interop features in Swift. But a wholesale switch to Swift doesn't seem realistic.
7. norman784 ◴[19 May 25 07:28 UTC] No.44027295[source]▶
I remember Andreas saying something along those lines in some interview, but seeing their repo[0] doesn't looks like

C++ 64.6%

HTML 22.4%

JavaScript 11.0%

CMake 0.7%

Objective-C++ 0.5%

Swift 0.3%

Other 0.5%

[0] https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird

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8. WD-42 ◴[20 May 25 05:54 UTC] No.44038202{3}[source]▶
It did seem like an odd decision maybe they thought better of it.