From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200312151534.hBFFYHfq009718@math.Princeton.EDU> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Links for Plan 9 In-reply-to: References: From: John Stalker Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:34:17 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: a4989fa8-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 sic scripsit Russ Cox die XIV Decembris anni MMIII: > I do think that Links is a demonstration that we could manage > to get a small web browser up and running without too much > code. I'm not too optimistic though, since I fear style sheets > and the like will soon obsolete any such attempt just like tables > obsoleted mothra. The first statement is true, but misses an important point. The people who could write that small web browser won't. For a job like that you need someone with good aesthetic sense, spartan coding style, and a strong sense of order. But the browser has to render the vast majority of real pages correctly--that is, as the author intended and not as the (ugly and everchanging) standards specify. The problem with HTML in particular is that any idiot can write it, and most of them do. If you are in the habit of clicking "view page source" to see why pages render oddly then you know what I mean. If you want a working web browser you have to look at a vast amount of bad code and try to figure out what the author's intent was. If you want to fix links then that code is mostly C code. If you want to write your own then the bad code is mostly HTML and javascript. I am far too lazy to do either, but I think Andrey has probably chosen the less painful path. The second statement is also true, and is one of many reasons why we are not likely to see the browser equivalent of sam or acme any time soon. Who wants to write an elegant solution to a problem which changes every time a new edition of Internet Explorer appears? -- John Stalker Department of Mathematics Princeton University (609)258-6469