On Sun, Dec 07, 2014 at 06:02:43PM -0500, Karl Dahlke wrote:
> > Ok, that sounds like a good idea, though the js process's going to have to have
> > some sort of threading if we want to do ajax etc.
> 
> right, but perhaps threading could come later, on the next increment.
> I'm thinking of pulling js to its own process,
> with an interprocess communication protocol,
> between edbrowse and js proc,
> that I would present here, first, for review,
> but all having the same functionality as today.
> Then of course we enhance it, and consider other engines, and such.

Ok, would this be launched from edbrowse via fork (thus making another edbrowse process) or be a totally separate js engine with a DOM perhaps?

> > I'd also like to separate out downloading from the network somehow such that a
> > large download doesn't block the entire program.
> 
> I think this is lots of work for little gain.
> Remember, everything asynchronous is a potential nightmare.
> I can download a 300 mb file and it just doesn't take very long.
> I think those features were developed when people were on dial-up connections.
> Really by the time I switch to another session to try to do something else,
> the file would already be downloaded.
> Maybe I'm spoiled by a good connection; but that's how it seems to me.
> And speeds will only increase.

Perhaps, but I've often found myself wishing edbrowse could download in the
background (and straight to disk) particularly when trying to download 1 gb +
isos and the like. Sometimes, like when downloading audiobooks (which sometimes
come as large zip files) you can't use something like wget because there's a
js-driven bit of logic which bounces your browser to the correct page,
and boom, I'm left with a blocked web browser downloading a file which I've got
no idea how big it is (if I forgot to look at the page)
and my machine's fairly resource limited by modern standards (only 1 gb of ram).
Anyway, may be that's just me, and is certainly a topic for a different thread,
but I don't think asynchronous downloads is an out dated feature,
particularly as files will get larger as internet speeds,
amounts of ram and disk space all increase.

Cheers,
Adam.