Re: SimpleWebKit (was GNUstep Web browser (was Re: WebKit Bounty))

[jhclouse]

<<Quite offending talk, don't you also think so?>>

It wasn't intended to be.  I just felt the need to amplify what Mark had said 
about the task of web compatibility and the massive task that building a 
resilient rendering engine is.  It wasn't directed at you or your efforts, 
which are perfectly fine.  (I was tired when I wrote the email and probably 
didn't communicate effectively.)

<<And: where would Linux or GNUstep or Gecko or IE or WebKit be now if they had 
followed your recommendations? We would still all use BSD and Netscape 1.0. 
Period.>>

Those projects went through many years of testing web applications, complicated 
CSS layouts, buggy JavaScript code, crazy user input and server output, etc.  
The sheer amount of stuff they've learned to account for over the years is 
staggering.  It's not easy to create an end-user web browsing renderer that 
accounts for these things in a short amount of time.

<<How do you know before you have done it? Can you predict the future?  And has 
the pure number of developers ever been an indicator for project success?>>

Because I've observed the chaotic nature of web development.  Even people who 
are fanatical about standards cannot agree on what they really mean and what 
the best practices are.  Just take a look at some of the flame-fests over XHTML 
vs. HTML and semantic markup vs. preserving 
deprecated-but-not-necessarily-deprecated tags like B and I.  And then there 
are all the subtle interractions between CSS rules.  And the people who use 
FrontPage because they don't know better.  And the pages written in Notepad in 
1994.  And on and on and on.  That's why I say it's a lot more complicated than 
just following the specs if you want a web browser (the original topic of this 
thread) for end-users.

But, as I say, your design goals are not a web browser, so this doesn't really 
apply to your valiant efforts.  (And if, by some miracle, you produce the next 
great browser, I'll be first in line to shake your hand!)