From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: boyd.roberts@ca-indosuez.com To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Message-ID: <4125691F.0051A93B.00@SNPAR12.> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 15:49:17 +0200 Subject: [9fans] mothra Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Topicbox-Message-UUID: df8643da-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 how come mothra bit the dust? From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Tom Duff" Message-Id: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 09:56:33 -0700 In-Reply-To: boyd.roberts@ca-indosuez.com "[9fans] mothra" (Jul 17, 3:49pm) References: <4125691F.0051A93B.00@SNPAR12.> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Topicbox-Message-UUID: dfe6acde-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > how come mothra bit the dust? I wrote it. It was not in good condition when I left Bell Labs. Understantably, nobody else wanted anything to do with it, so it died. Its biggest shortcoming (other than its general internal hidousness) was that its document imaging model was fixed before entered the picture. Deep down it believed that documents were running text with embedded line-breaks and indent changes, meaning there's no good way to get tables or frames to work. Also, if your browser doesn't closely match Netscape and Microsoft, people will believe that it just doesn't work, regardless of how good a job you do of meeting the published specifications. On the other hand, I still think its idea of how to handle navigation (mostly the panel with an LRU list of pages visited) was better than anything else I've seen. Writing a web browser is a fool's errand. The specification was changing faster than I could type, and still is. -- Tom Duff. Just a minute, I think I've got one in the car. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <014e01bff013$107dfbc0$62356887@HWTPC> From: "Howard Trickey" To: , <9fans@cse.psu.edu> References: <4125691F.0051A93B.00@SNPAR12.> <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:18:42 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: dfeef678-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Tom Duff wrote: > Writing a web browser is a fool's errand. The specification > was changing faster than I could type, and still is. Don't I know it! - Howard Trickey, erstwhile fool From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:25:02 +0000 From: Michael Jeffrey Message-ID: <963862171.4019.0.nnrp-08.9e98cd5e@news.demon.co.uk> References: <4125691F.0051A93B.00@SNPAR12.>, <014e01bff013$107dfbc0$62356887@HWTPC> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e138d76a-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 we hope to start shipping Plan 9 CDs very soon. The CD will include an emulated version of Inferno which will in turn include Charon the Inferno browser. Apparently the fools errand has been passed on to us - we'll see what we can make of it. Michael Jeffrey From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:25:22 +0000 From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: <397385A3.6AD65F99@arl.army.mil> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: (Tom, Duff), <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e12993c2-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Surely somebody must be trying to port Mozilla to Plan 9? From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 10:58:38 +0200 From: Lucio De Re To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin> <397385A3.6AD65F99@arl.army.mil> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <397385A3.6AD65F99@arl.army.mil>; from Douglas A. Gwyn on Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:25:22AM +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e146b8a8-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:25:22AM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote: > > Surely somebody must be trying to port Mozilla to Plan 9? Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? I think we may want to reverse the paradigm: when we were considering http options, it was established that the filesystem representation would fall short of needs. But perhaps a graphic model can be designed with HTML as its input, and one may even make it flexible enough to deal with revamps such as the addition of tables and frames. I have a vague feeling that this can be mapped onto a filesystem, or am I dreaming? ++L From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 10:48:38 +0000 From: Wladimir Mutel Message-ID: <8l1bpt$2ekv$1@pandora.alkar.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin>, <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1637538-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Lucio De Re wrote: > On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:25:22AM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote: >> >> Surely somebody must be trying to port Mozilla to Plan 9? > Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's > near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? Gecko rendering engine is small and almost suitable for embedding, they said. Near-OSness of Mozilla5/Netscape6 is just a result of poor decomposition. But it seems 'Gecko' itself could be adopted under Plan9. To be something like 'page' but for viewing html. -- mwg@alkar.net, 340044, 7442333, 7786458 - Владимир Мутель From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 13:37:39 +0200 From: Lucio De Re To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000718133739.T2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin>, <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> <8l1bpt$2ekv$1@pandora.alkar.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <8l1bpt$2ekv$1@pandora.alkar.net>; from Wladimir Mutel on Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 10:48:38AM +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e16a153c-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 10:48:38AM +0000, Wladimir Mutel wrote: > > Gecko rendering engine is small and almost suitable for embedding, > they said. Near-OSness of Mozilla5/Netscape6 is just a result of > poor decomposition. But it seems 'Gecko' itself could be adopted > under Plan9. To be something like 'page' but for viewing html. > I've been wondering about rendering engines across the board: a lot of Linux's appeal lies with the availability of games, and I see little reason, with Tom Duff and Rob Pike's experience and skills (talents, really) why Plan 9 could not provide similar tools. Of course, my personal wish list is more or less infinite :-) Is a URL for gecko readily available? ++L From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 12:46:15 +0000 From: Wladimir Mutel Message-ID: <8l1jd6$1mc0$1@pandora.alkar.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin>, <20000718133739.T2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1a4c3da-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Lucio De Re wrote: >> Gecko rendering engine is small and almost suitable for embedding, > Is a URL for gecko readily available? http://www.mozilla.org/ - get the source It should be in Mozilla source, I guess. -- mwg@alkar.net, 340044, 7442333, 7786458 - Владимир Мутель From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181248.IAA26571@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "rob pike" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:48:25 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e19de056-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > Surely somebody must be trying to port Mozilla to Plan 9? While that would be better than no browser at all, Mozilla is just the sort of stand-alone monolith that we're trying to argue against. And of course, everyone else in the world is trying to turn their system into a giant web browser. I'd rather see web access be one aspect of a system in which the pieces work in concert. -rob From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181249.IAA26660@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "rob pike" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:49:52 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e190a918-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's > near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? Opera is indeed a better idea. I tried to engage them about doing a port to Plan 9 but didn't even receive the courtesy of a reply. -rob From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181251.IAA26781@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "rob pike" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:51:26 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1976de8-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > I have a vague feeling that this can be mapped onto a filesystem, or am > I dreaming? It has to be done very very carefully because URLs are not a naming system. C.f. the discussion earlier on this topic, I argue for a model more like /net than ftpfs. We've started explorations in that direction, but it's too early to tell if we'll get anywhere useful. -rob From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181316.JAA27621@cse.psu.edu> From: Sape Mullender Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 09:15:48 -0400 To: owner-9fans@cse.psu.edu, 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1ac2a4e-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Rob writes: > I'd rather see web access be one aspect of a system in > which the pieces work in concert. Isn't that what caused Microsoft some trouble? Sape From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:19:05 +0200 From: Lucio De Re To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000718151905.V2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> References: <200007181251.IAA26781@cse.psu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <200007181251.IAA26781@cse.psu.edu>; from rob pike on Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:51:26AM -0400 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1b2af2c-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:51:26AM -0400, rob pike wrote: > > > I have a vague feeling that this can be mapped onto a filesystem, or am > > I dreaming? > > It has to be done very very carefully because URLs are not a naming > system. C.f. the discussion earlier on this topic, I argue for a model > more like /net than ftpfs. We've started explorations in that direction, > but it's too early to tell if we'll get anywhere useful. > Accepted that URIs are an abomination :-) but consider "html2ps", misguided Perl script that it is. Within its own limits, it is quite capable. If one draws the line at locally available information for the presentation (the rendering engine), the actual information retrieval may just have to be less canonical. Treating the two problems as one is likely to lead to desperation, but perhaps by attempting to decouple them, they may become more tractable. You already have a perfectly good uget/hget, which I thought would make a fine replacement for the DHCP client, anyway - why have a plethora of protocols to retrieve an arbitrary set of key=value entries? Why not use HTTP? But ignoring that sidetracking, I think a rendering tool that relies on hget for the data input and something similarly simple for form filling purposes, ought to be within human abilities. Keep in mind that I, at least, believe that the web browser is quite a versatile tool, and it is hard to imagine a computing resource of any value that does not include such a tool. In fact, imagine having to live without it for any length of time at this point. That said, perhaps more of us should approach Opera and request a port. I am surprised they did not respond, perhaps you forgot to highlight quite who you were? A bit like David Korn and the famed Microsoft press release of their Windows tools for Unix? I'll try and do some needling, the Opera people seem to have completed their port to BeOS and whatever else, although not to Linux, unless I've missed their annoucement, they may have resources to spare. I must say I respect their persistence in the face of enormous competitive pressure. ++L From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181337.JAA28707@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "rob pike" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 09:37:29 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e1cd7ab4-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > > I'd rather see web access be one aspect of a system in > > which the pieces work in concert. > Isn't that what caused Microsoft some trouble? No. -rob From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: miller@hamnavoe.demon.co.uk To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:38:59 +0100 Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-Id: Topicbox-Message-UUID: e2290c3a-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 If anyone is nostalgic for mothra itself, I've just about finished adapting it (and the panel library, which I needed for my teletext browser) to the 3rd edition graphics model. Mothra may only be able to cope with a small subset of today's websites, but for that subset it's quick and effective. (I've borrowed from lynx the idea of displaying frames as a list of links, so that framed sites can be navigated without having to lay them out fully.) Because it ignores what it doesn't understand, mothra can often glean some useful content from a page where charon tries too hard and just draws a blank. And using mothra I don't have to worry about malicious scripts and cookies ... Anyone with a 2nd edition license can get a boddle from me. -- Richard Miller From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:25:43 +0000 From: Holger Veit Message-ID: References: <200007181316.JAA27621@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e23de43e-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, 18 Jul 2000 14:05:02 GMT, Sape Mullender wrote: >Rob writes: >> I'd rather see web access be one aspect of a system in >> which the pieces work in concert. > >Isn't that what caused Microsoft some trouble? Probably yes, but then mainly because they didn't/don't have a concept. You don't get a system if you throw together some arbitrary components that may or may not communicate. Holger -- Zur Signatur: http://www.detebe.org/3.14/ILOVEYOU-Signature-FAQ.html begin LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs Wirf' diesen Schrott von Mailprogramm weg, der hier ein Virus vermutet! end From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:38:59 -0000." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 19:31:55 +0200 From: Steve Kilbane Topicbox-Message-UUID: e31b2cae-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 It seems to me that the reason why a web browser would be such a behemoth is because current browsers try to do everything in one. Breaking the problems down might produce something that's more reasonable. The protocols should be separate. Whether it's something as simple as writing a URL to a ctl file and reading a page back from a data file, or something more subtle, I don't know, but the posting and fetching shouldn't have much of a clue about what to do with the result. Since the spec keeps changing, maybe the returned page could be translated into a local language that was more stable, and more attuned to using a filesystem as the underlying namespace model than URLs. For doing the translation, perhaps a leaf could be taken from troff's book, and have subcomponents of the page translated into something else - the underlying, internal language. There's always going to be some sites (or parts of them) that fall through the gap and don't work. But that's true now, for everyone... steve From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:11:50 -0700 From: Randolph Fritz To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000718111150.C2329@cyber-dyne.com> References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin> <397385A3.6AD65F99@arl.army.mil> <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za>; from lucio@proxima.alt.za on Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 10:58:38AM +0200 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e2546416-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 10:58:38AM +0200, Lucio De Re wrote: > On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 08:25:22AM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote: > > > > Surely somebody must be trying to port Mozilla to Plan 9? > > Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's > near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? > Perhaps the way to approach it is to make Mozilla into a Plan 9 terminal. :) (Only joking. I think.) -- Randolph Fritz Eugene, Oregon, USA From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: forsyth@vitanuova.com Message-Id: <200007181826.OAA08546@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 19:26:22 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e25a7d42-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's > near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? > >>Perhaps the way to approach it is to make Mozilla into a Plan 9 >>terminal. :) (Only joking. I think.) Possibly. Chris Locke wrote an Inferno plug-in for Internet Explorer that lets you run a full Inferno session (including window manager, charon and Acme) in an explorer page. Inferno is running in the page, it's not just a terminal, although it can obviously then mount remote services. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007181833.OAA04820@smtp4.fas.harvard.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "Russ Cox" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 14:33:20 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e26241bc-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 i agree with skip From cse.psu.edu!owner-9fans Wed Apr 8 00:45:34 EDT 1998 From: "Fariborz "Skip" Tavakkolian" Subject: Re: [9fans] netscape Isn't porting Netscape to Plan9 one of the signs of Armageddon? From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:15:49 -0700 From: Randolph Fritz To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000718151549.B959@cyber-dyne.com> References: <200007181826.OAA08546@cse.psu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <200007181826.OAA08546@cse.psu.edu>; from forsyth@vitanuova.com on Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 07:26:22PM +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e33b05e2-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 07:26:22PM +0000, forsyth@vitanuova.com wrote: > > Chris Locke wrote an Inferno plug-in for Internet Explorer that lets > you run a full Inferno session (including window manager, charon and Acme) > in an explorer page. Inferno is running in the page, it's not just > a terminal, although it can obviously then mount remote services. > The words of the apocalypse: It would be perfectly practical to implement 9P as a Javascript class. The rest, as they say, is left as an exercise to the student. Randolph, wondering if he's created a monster From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:27:12 +0000 From: Chris Locke Message-ID: <963959212.16494.0.nnrp-02.c2de4822@news.demon.co.uk> References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e485e9f8-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Steve Kilbane wrote in message news:200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk... > It seems to me that the reason why a web browser would be such a > behemoth is because current browsers try to do everything in one. > Breaking the problems down might produce something that's more > reasonable. > Charon is indeed implemented in a fairly 'modular' way by virtue of it being written in Limbo. There are 'protocol' modules for the http, ftp and file URL protocol specifiers. URL parsing is done by a distinct module. Image cache, again a separate module. Ecmascript - separate module, carefully designed for re-use in any app that wants ECMA-262 support. What you find is that you have to implement a huge amount of stuff that, even though carefully crafted as distinct modules, only the browser actually uses! Having worked with web-phone manufacturers, the modular nature of Charon is great as you can simply not include certain modules (e.g. Javascript) on a phone to free up some flash. But in reality everyone wants everything. Worse, they want it to look exactly the same as IE, including quicktime, windows media player, macromedia flash vector graphics etc etc and they complain when it doesn't run in under 4MB on a device with no hard disk! If you start on a web-browser project, be under no illusion as to how much people will moan about your efforts, even if they were never meant to be 'the latest and greatest web browsing experience'. There will always be a page that someone wants to see that your software doesn't render and you can bet you'll hear about it! Throwing a few more irons in this fire - consider the number of sites that use Javascript for simple navigation, redirection and stuff like that. It is impossible to get some pages without Javascript support. You just need a URL you say? PAH I say! URLs get generated by servers on the fly, parameterised to indicate some notion of 'session' (trying to get round failing of the underlying protocol) - how's that going to work in a Fileserver model for web access? Just my 2p's worth Chris. (Posting from home - my views not Vita Nuova's) From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:27:29 +0000 From: Lyndon Nerenberg Message-ID: <86vgy33uej.fsf@gollum.esys.ca> References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e48ca1b2-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 >>>>> "Steve" == Steve Kilbane writes: Steve> The protocols should be separate. Whether it's something as Steve> simple as writing a URL to a ctl file and reading a page Steve> back from a data file, or something more subtle, I don't Steve> know, but the posting and fetching shouldn't have much of a Steve> clue about what to do with the result. Exactly. An httpfs that just serves HTTP raw MIME content (and handles caching). We have to divorce HTTP from HTML. They're two distinct problems. We should look at the 3rd edition mail system for clues on how to layer an HTML reader on top of an HTTP fileserver. The mail problem is very similar: MIME on top of IMAP. s/IMAP/HTTP/ using the existing MUA tools and we're much of the way there. (Especially if httpfs can export a file/directory structure comparable to how the IMAP server does it. httpfs caching might in fact be mandatory for this to be possible.) --lyndon From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:28:00 +0000 From: Chris Locke Message-ID: <963992510.14004.0.nnrp-12.c2de4822@news.demon.co.uk> References: <200007181826.OAA08546@cse.psu.edu>, <20000718151549.B959@cyber-dyne.com> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e498ba1a-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Randolph Fritz wrote in message > > It would be perfectly practical to implement 9P as a Javascript > class. You are confusing Java and Javascript. They share 4 letters of their name and that's about all. Chris. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC> From: "Howard Trickey" To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> <86vgy33uej.fsf@gollum.esys.ca> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 07:45:36 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e4b4d8f8-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > Exactly. An httpfs that just serves HTTP raw MIME content (and handles > caching). > > We have to divorce HTTP from HTML. They're two distinct problems. You're kidding yourself if you think this comes anywhere near solving the big problems in writing a web browser. Actually fetching the bits and passing them along is trivial. (And, in any case, fetching the bits is more closely tied to the logic of the browser than you might think: you have to deal with redirections, errors, and authorization requests. And, it is good to be able to start rendering before all of the HTML has arrived, and certainly before all of the images have arrived.) I wrote the first version of the charon browser with a "webget" filesystem to serve the pages. I abandoned it in later rewrites, mainly for speed reasons, but also because it wasn't buying me anything. We only ever had one web client attached to the damn thing anyway. But that could change in a Plan 9 environment... Separating things into pieces is easy, but doesn't help much if the pieces are hard. The first real hard part is lexing/parsing the html in a way that is forgiving of errors in exactly the same ways as Netscape and IE. The next real hard part is getting the layout (especially tables!) exactly the same as Netscape and IE. Another hard part is SSL, just because ASN1 is a pain in the butt. The hardest hard part is making Javascript objects and methods that behave exactly the same as Netscape and IE (especially if you want to do something different with respect to the concepts of "top level windows" or "frames"). And don't say "it doesn't have to be exactly the same as Netscape and IE" until you've had users. - Howard Trickey, erstwhile fool From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:27:31 +0200 From: Lucio De Re To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000719142731.F3081@cackle.proxima.alt.za> References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> <86vgy33uej.fsf@gollum.esys.ca> <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC>; from Howard Trickey on Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:45:36AM -0400 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e4c5bd44-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 07:45:36AM -0400, Howard Trickey wrote: > > You're kidding yourself if you think this comes anywhere near solving > the big problems in writing a web browser. Actually fetching the bits > and passing them along is trivial. (And, in any case, fetching the bits > is more closely tied to the logic of the browser than you might think: > you have to deal with redirections, errors, and authorization requests. > And, it is good to be able to start rendering before all of the HTML > has arrived, and certainly before all of the images have arrived.) > I'm sure Howard is as good a judge of difficulty here as any. But there is one key issue that we are a little luckier with: we do not have "clients" to satisfy. We _need_ a browser for mundane operations, but we are not dependent on it, nor are we _here_ hellbent on having our pages delivered exactly like Netscape of IE5. > I wrote the first version of the charon browser with a "webget" filesystem > to serve the pages. I abandoned it in later rewrites, mainly for speed > reasons, but also because it wasn't buying me anything. We only ever > had one web client attached to the damn thing anyway. But that could > change in a Plan 9 environment... > I keep thinking SQUID here. Squid does a hell of a lot of useful work, without having the foggiest idea what it's about. Webget, presumably, was along the same lines. > The first real hard part is lexing/parsing the html in a way that is > forgiving > of errors in exactly the same ways as Netscape and IE. The next real hard > part > is getting the layout (especially tables!) exactly the same as Netscape and > IE. html2ps gets this bit done well enough to be a useful tool. _I_ have little to complain about that. Again, the audience isn't a commercial buyer. > Another hard part is SSL, just because ASN1 is a pain in the butt. No, that can't be hard. Tedious, certainly, but useful. > The hardest hard part is making Javascript objects and methods that behave > exactly the same as Netscape and IE (especially if you want to do something > different with respect to the concepts of "top level windows" or "frames"). > This, and Java, naturally, are bugbears. But we can perhaps refine these as conditions demand. The possibility of adding plug-ins seems the only useful route. Perhaps that is particularly hard, but not yet daunting. > And don't say "it doesn't have to be exactly the same as Netscape and IE" > until you've had users. > You made me say it. We have users, but not clients. Often, all I want is a single page, preferably stripped of images and banner adverts. What I do think is invaluable is a protocol that interacts more intelligently with the proxy server. ++L PS: another point worth making is that IE-5 is far trimmer than Netscape. Netscape carries far too much baggage, even Navigator. I have little idea how this is reflected in Mozilla. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 08:41:00 -0400 From: Colin DeVilbiss To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000719084059.B1350@000pri069.bresnanlink.net> References: <41256921.0048318B.00@SNPAR12.> <009901bff17d$37d44f10$62356887@HWTPC> <20000719145105.G3081@cackle.proxima.alt.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20000719145105.G3081@cackle.proxima.alt.za>; from lucio@proxima.alt.za on Wed, Jul 19, 2000 at 02:51:06PM +0200 Topicbox-Message-UUID: e4dadb34-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > If lynx wasn't so hideously ugly, I believe it would have made its > mark in this sense too. c.f. w3m, a unix curses-based web browser with pretty good table rendering, and one which can render frames by making them look like tables. http://ei5nazha.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/~aito/w3m/eng/ speaking from experience, it's good enough for me, but, being tied to cursor-addressability, isn:t a candidate for a direct port by any means. -- Colin DeVilbiss crdevilb@mtu.edu From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:22:15 +0000 From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: <3975B72A.36C13C3C@arl.army.mil> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin>, <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5951292-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Lucio De Re wrote: > Hopefully not. Maybe Opera, but does one really need Netscape's > near-operating system effort just to present a few pictures? Who said "just to present a few pictures"? These days, any Web browser appreciably less functional than Netscape 4.0 is simply unusable with many Web sites. That might be regrettable, but it's the way things have evolved. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:22:31 +0000 From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: <3975B7A9.DFA91116@arl.army.mil> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <200007181248.IAA26571@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5a31446-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 rob pike wrote: > While that would be better than no browser at all, Mozilla is > just the sort of stand-alone monolith that we're trying to > argue against. And of course, everyone else in the world is > trying to turn their system into a giant web browser. I'd rather > see web access be one aspect of a system in which the pieces > work in concert. That would be nice, but meanwhile life without a Web browser is nearly impossible.. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:23:39 +0000 From: Andy Newman Message-ID: References: <200007181826.OAA08546@cse.psu.edu>, <20000718151549.B959@cyber-dyne.com>, <963992510.14004.0.nnrp-12.c2de4822@news.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e51a93e6-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Chris Locke wrote: >You are confusing Java and Javascript. >They share 4 letters of their name and that's about all. Oh come on. The operator lexicon is almost identical! -- Chuck Berry lied about the promised land From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:23:55 +0000 From: Andy Newman Message-ID: References: <10007170956.ZM905012@marvin>, <20000718105838.R2260@cackle.proxima.alt.za>, <8l1bpt$2ekv$1@pandora.alkar.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5002d3a-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Wladimir Mutel wrote: > Gecko rendering engine is small and almost suitable for embedding, > they said. They lied. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:38:33 +0000 From: Andy Newman Message-ID: References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5e027a0-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Steve Kilbane wrote: >For doing the translation, perhaps a leaf could be >taken from troff's book, and have subcomponents of the page >translated into something else - the underlying, internal >language. They are - boxes. CSS2 defines a layout mechanism based on boxes with different layout characteristics. A modern browser, e.g, Mozilla, maintains and transforms trees which eventually get processed to draw something. The document is a tree - HTML or XML or something, there is a frame representation (the boxes). Frame generation is controlled by style sheets which also specify other attributes of the presentation. Frames are then processed by the layout machinery to generate actual presenation commands. There are numerous types of frames and numerous rules for how they combine when positioned on some surface. Also remember that HTML specifies interactive elements (and most sites use them) and there's tables thrown in for good measure and they have their own particular needs. JavaScript these days is for manipulating the trees, i.e, dynamic HTML, where they CSS attributes get changed in response to some event. Anyone who's done a page layout program or formatter of any kind will appreciate the complexity of handling modern HTML. If you ignore style sheets it isn't too bad. The modern rules make it harder. At least it gives the processors and memory manufacturers cause for celebration. Can't wait for a fully XML enabled watch, probably generate enough heat to keep my wrist warm. From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:59:25 -0700 From: Randolph Fritz To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Message-ID: <20000719095925.A5544@cyber-dyne.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Topicbox-Message-UUID: e631d000-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 A few thoughts: It occurs to me that the "grail" browser, written mostly in Python and incomplete, might be a good candidate for Plan 9 usage. Maybe... There was also, in the acme paper I read, a brief mention of making acme display other data types than plain text. Did anything ever come of that? -- Randolph Fritz Eugene, Oregon, USA From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007191829.OAA13545@cse.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra From: "rob pike" Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:29:29 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e64a93a6-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > There was also, in the acme paper I read, a brief mention of making > acme display other data types than plain text. Did anything ever come > of that? Beyond some early experiments, no. It's still on my list. -rob From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-Id: <200007192045.VAA15726@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 19 Jul 2000 07:45:36 EDT." <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:45:38 +0200 From: Steve Kilbane Topicbox-Message-UUID: e66c4ef6-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > You're kidding yourself if you think this comes anywhere near solving > the big problems in writing a web browser. I think we're looking at different problems. To me, Plan 9 has always been about stepping back, looking at the whole problem, and solving it with hindsight. Nods to the outside world are at the borders between Plan 9 and reality. Within the bounds of the system, compatibility with less discerning environments is not an issue. Is a web browser an exception? Maybe. Maybe not. On the one hand, the point of the WWW is the first two WWs. On the other hand, I'm sure there aren't that many people who can view every site they visit with impunity. So Plan 9 could only hope to reach a fraction of the sites. 10% of the work might get you 90% of the sites, to a bearable degree. If they're the 90% you want, it might be good enough to save you a reboot. So I'm wondering if you take what the web has to offer - what people try to show, in pages - and revisit it, from a Plan 9 viewpoint. Build a Plan 9-only internal system, and translate at the boundary. > The first real hard part is lexing/parsing the html in a way that is > forgiving > of errors in exactly the same ways as Netscape and IE. I'm not that concerned. If I can work out what the content is supposed to be, that'll do. "Exactly the same" is not an issue. > The next real hard part > is getting the layout (especially tables!) But I'd hope that the internal system wouldn't use HTML (or at least, not the outside version), but something else, more regular and predictable. The table processing would be a single component of the translator. > The hardest hard part is making Javascript objects and methods that behave > exactly the same as Netscape and IE (especially if you want to do something > different with respect to the concepts of "top level windows" or "frames"). Thoroughly unpleasant, yes. I'd be more inclined to live with frames (as a supported concept at the translator) and dump javascript, though. > And don't say "it doesn't have to be exactly the same as Netscape and IE" > until you've had users. But that all depends on the users, doesn't it? I've routinely got Java* turned off. I don't have Flash, Shockwave, IE, Real* players, or any of that rubbish. Personally, I get by without those sites. Others may not be happy with that; they know where the solution lies. The same is true for people who like MS Office, emacs, X, etc. Perhaps this is being overly parochial. Everyone uses the Netscape and IE features we know and loathe. Everyone uses TCP, too. Plan 9 has IL. steve From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <397620B2.7020505@noos.fr> Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 23:42:10 +0200 From: Boyd Roberts User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; N; Win98; en-US; m14) Netscape6/6.0b1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra References: <200007192045.VAA15726@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: e6836f14-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Steve Kilbane wrote: > To me, Plan 9 has always been about stepping back, looking at the > whole problem, and solving it with hindsight. the stuff that came out of the unix room always struck me as distilling it down to the essense; doing more with less. i don't think i've ever seen that anywhere else (well, maybe PARC, but that's a bit before my time). -- Boyd Roberts boyd@psycho-basket-case.org ``I come over here to kill them cocksuckers, not work for 'em'' -- Moon Dog, _Pettibone's Law_, John Keene From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 16:34:30 +0000 From: Lyndon Nerenberg Message-ID: <86g0p6ynra.fsf@gollum.esys.ca> References: , <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e7eef9c2-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 >>>>> "Howard" == Howard Trickey writes: Howard> Separating things into pieces is easy, but doesn't help Howard> much if the pieces are hard. I'm surprised to hear you say that. IMO modularization is something you want when dealing with complex programming tasks. At the very least it simplifies the verification process for the functional components. Howard> And don't say "it doesn't have to be exactly the same as Howard> Netscape and IE" until you've had users. I spent a year developing our webmail product, and have more experience in this regard than I ever want to be inflicted with again. I'm not interested in reimplementing IE or Netscape. If I need those products, they are available to me elsewhere. What I am interested in is seeing how I can take advantage of Plan9 to create a (possibly new) method of viewing the web. I'm not interested in Java(script), Macromedia Flash, or any of the other Whizzo Butter(tm) gizmos. My life is no less complete for the lack of being able to view web pages that require that sort of support. I haven't enabled Java(script) in any of my web browsers for a couple of years now. (Well, except for when I was doing webmail development. They're never enabled when I'm doing general browsing, and I never use webmail as a consumer.) --lyndon From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 08:33:21 +0000 From: Tom Ivar Helbekkmo Message-ID: <86r98osk9e.fsf@athene.i.eunet.no> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii References: , <006f01bff176$dab42fe0$62356887@HWTPC>, <86g0p6ynra.fsf@gollum.esys.ca> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e834a8aa-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Lyndon Nerenberg writes: > I'm not interested in reimplementing IE or Netscape. If I need those > products, they are available to me elsewhere. What I am interested > in is seeing how I can take advantage of Plan9 to create a (possibly > new) method of viewing the web. Hear! Hear! If one wants Netscape or IE, they're available. If one wants a tool that's geared toward the distributed sharing of information in the context of a useful structure, something new and interesting is needed. The current XML trend is not it. SGML is closer (and actually is what XML merely claims to be), but it has its flaws, and does not appeal to anyone who hasn't already figured out that they need it. A new flavor of web browser, in the spirit of Plan 9, might be a very good vehicle for the investigation of alternative ways of disseminating information. -tih -- The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them. --Eric S. Raymond From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: Richard Miller In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [9fans] mothra Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:12:59 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8727487a-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 From the Flogging a Dead Horse department: By popular request (of matt@proweb.co.uk) mothra will now accept and send cookies if /mnt/webcookies is accessible when mothra starts. It will also now listen on plumbing channel "web" for URLs to fetch. I've also fixed a few memory-corruption errors which should make it somewhat more stable. New version is in /contrib/mothra on sources. It still doesn't handle tables, scripts, stylesheets, etc etc etc. -- Richard