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One year of sponsored Servo development

358 points · 144 comments · AshleysBrain

  1. p-e-w · · focus · HN ↗
    What can one actually do with Servo today?

    It’s apparently still not ready to be used as a browser engine (and may never be), so what exactly is it for?

    1. foresterre · · focus · HN ↗
      Regardless of actual use as an (embedded) browser, it is useful in the sense that it can be used to provide (another) source of validation about whether specs and WPT [1] tests are properly and clearly defined. That helps for long term browser compatibility.

      [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wpt.fyi&#x2F;results&#x2F;?label=experimental&amp;label=master&amp;product=servo&amp;aligned" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wpt.fyi&#x2F;results&#x2F;?label=experimental&amp;label=master&amp;pro...

      1. charcircuit · · focus · HN ↗
        &gt;long term browser compatibility

        Making a new browser engine hurts browser compatibility more than it helps it. It now becomes one more target that needs to be tested against, limitations need to be kept tracked of, etc. The best thing for long term browser compatibility is focusing resources into Blink. In regards to the standard we can use LLMs to cross reference the spec, with tests, and with the implementation to make sure all match.

        1. teekert · · focus · HN ↗
          Ah, you must be too young to have experienced early Internet Explorer, which attempted just this.
          1. charcircuit · · focus · HN ↗
            Internet Explorer was not open source acting as engine everyone&#x27;s browser could use and it got abandoned by Microsoft. It is not the same situation.
            1. mohamedkoubaa · · focus · HN ↗
              At this point Microsoft should just open source it for science.
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