Ladybird browser is switching from C++ to Swift
Ladybird browser is switching from C++ to Swift
Andreas Kling aka @awesomekling wrote:
We've been evaluating a number of C++ successor languages for @ladybirdbrowser , and the one best suited to our needs appears to be @SwiftLang 🪶
Over the last few months, I've asked a bunch of folks to pick some little part of our project and try rewriting it in the different languages we were evaluating. The feedback was very clear: everyone preferred Swift!
Why do we like Swift?
First off, Swift has both memory & data race safety (as of v6). It's also a modern language with solid ergonomics.
Something that matters to us a lot is OO. Web specs & browser internals tend to be highly object-oriented, and life is easier when you can model specs closely in your code. Swift has first-class OO support, in many ways even nicer than C++.
The Swift team is also investing heavily in C++ interop, which means there's a real path to incremental adoption, not just gigantic rewrites.
Strong ties to Apple?
Swift has historically been strongly tied to Apple and their platforms, but in the last year, there's been a push for "swiftlang" to become more independent. (It's now in a separate GitHub org, no longer in "apple", for example).
Support for non-Apple platforms is also improving, as is the support for other, LSP-based development environments.
What happens next?
We aren't able to start using it just yet, as the current release of Swift ships with a version of Clang that's too old to grok our existing C++ codebase. But when Swift 6 comes out of beta this fall, we will begin using it!
No language is perfect, and there are a lot of things here that we don't know yet. I'm not aware of anyone doing browser engine stuff in Swift before, so we'll probably end up with feedback for the Swift team as well.
I'm super excited about this! We must steer Ladybird towards memory safety, and the first step is selecting a successor language that we can begin adopting very soon. 🤓🐞
Really feels like a mistake. No major language exists without a major benefactor supporting it, and Swift's only benefactor has zero interest in cross platform anything.
Good luck 5 years from now when cross platform Swift has gone the way of cross platform Safari.
Actually, this isn't true. Apple has a vested interest in cross platform Swift. They've been pushing hard for Swift on Linux because they want Swift to run on servers, and they're right to. Look at how hard JavaScript dominates on the server-side because of one language everywhere.
Swift is a fast, modern, and safe language for iOS, macOS, and other Apple platforms.
It is compiled with LLVM and Clang. Where is the danger of losing cross-platform compatibility? It will be fine.
Also, Safari on Windows had low usage, and was probably a pain to maintain. Swift cross platform is more about abstracting out Apple specific things (like the standard library and UI toolkit). Apple has already been investing multi-year efforts into Swift on the server for longer than Safari on Windows existed. The last couple versions of Swift (~3-4years of development) have been almost entirely focused on safe concurrency, which is intended for server-side development.
Also, Safari on Windows had low usage, and was probably a pain to maintain.
I'm 90% sure the entire reason was that it would force all web developers who wanted to target iOS to buy Macs since that's the only place you could then test against Safari / Webkit.
Apple has already been investing multi-year efforts into Swift on the server for longer than Safari on Windows existed. The last couple versions of Swift (~3-4years of development) have been almost entirely focused on safe concurrency, which is intended for server-side development.
That doesn't mean they've invested anything in getting it running on consumer operating systems.
Apple is still very vested in the success of Swift overall and also friendly to the cross-platform agenda.
What significant beneficiary is backing Rust?
At a deeper level, they both heavily lean on LLVM which of course is heavily supported by many players ( including Apple ) and which is also deeply cross-platform.
This seems like such a poor choice if you want a cross platform browser.
Not necessarily. The language itself is implemented on LLVM and compiles to a variety of backends, and can interoperate with C and C++ (including presenting C++ classes and STL types in its type system). Toolchains exist for Windows and Linux, as well as Apple platforms, and porting them to other POSIX-like OSes shouldn’t be too hard. The core of the language and its Foundation runtime library are open-source and cross-platform; it’s only macOS/iOS APIs and higher-level frameworks built on them like SwiftUI which are proprietary. Swift is in use on non-Apple platforms: there’s the Kitura web framework, which gets deployed mostly on Linux, and someone has recently used it to write games for the PlayDate handheld console.
In general, I can’t fault his rationale there. Swift has more modern language features (such as an expressive type system) than Go, is not quite as fiddly as Rust, isn’t a trainwreck of incompatible levels of abstraction like C++, and has developer momentum behind it unlike Dart.
I've worked with Swift a bunch for Apple platforms, am mildly familiar with how it works on other platforms. It should be able to compile on a wide host of platforms with minimal/no issues. The runtime dependencies are localized to Apple platforms, and I think the dominant UI toolkit on other platforms is a Swift port of qt. So it should be just fine?
Probably to be a cross platform wide-adopted browser is not the goal, and the author hopes to find a niche userbase amongst conservative macOS users to feed his narcissism.
Hey Ladybird — get off Xitter and use something else like Mastadon.
Programming language: Swift - owned by big corp
Source forge: Github - owned by big corp
Communication channels:- Xitter - owned by big corp
- Discord - proprietary and non-searchable
👌
For comparison, Mozilla is on Twitter as well, but they're also on mastodon and even went as far as deciding to host their own instance.
Now THAT was unexpected.
I say this as a Swift developer (and Obj-C before that), who’s built apps on Apple platforms for 20 years. I love the language and I love developing for Mac and iOS. But why would you reach for Swift for a cross platform browser? The support on Windows and Android is in its infancy, and it’s not a widely known or used language in the context of system programming. I’d never write a mobile app in any other language, but I’d never write a browser engine in this one.
Swift was developed by a lot of former C++ committee members, and in C++ circles they’ve been advocating for it as a “successor language” for quite some time.
This could definitely be confusing if you don’t have that context, but making Swift useful for this kind of project has been an explicit goal of the Swift developers for years.
How have they been advocating that? This is the first I'm hearing about any of this...
Through talks at C++ conferences and appearances on C++ podcasts:
https://youtu.be/lgivCGdmFrw?feature=shared
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cppcast/id968703120?i=1000663536368
IDK, but D is probably a better "successor language" for C++ than Swift. The lack of corporate support is both a curse and a blessing: What it lacks in money makes up in no "hype-bust" cycles, thus we don't have to jump on various bandwagons and programming trends can be easier written off as just trends (e.g. we dodged a bullet by never going through a "const by default" suggestion).
I have wanted to like D for so long but it has just not been able to create a cohesive story outside its own bubble. It feels like it is going nowhere. Certainly, given its ages, there is no obvious path to popularity.
Is Swift really safe?
I never understand hate ladybird and SymphonyOS is getting in fediverse.
People are doing interesting work against all odds, everyone ever just saying "it is not possible", finding some random comments from project founder to hate.
But you know what? You and your opinion is not important. People are not doing this to make Linux competitor or Mozzila competitor but to have fun and learn something new.
I also don't want apple near it, but Andreas learned browser development on Safari and with looking for "popular enought" memory safe language it is rust vs swift and just by looking at the code becomes obvious how easier Swift is to pick up. Especially for someone comming from C++.
Haters gonna hate, I wish them luck. Failing is ok too.
I don't think hate is the right word. Vitriol maybe.
I don't hate the project or the devs.
It's just that when someone suggests this might one day be a competitive browser engine, everyone feels obligated to point out, sometimes a little too emphatically, the many challenges the project must overcome.
Perhaps part of it is borne of frustrations around mozilla. They're our last best chance, and yet we're all very frustrated at their constant mismanagement and errors of judgement. The suggestion that several people can build an independent competitor in their spare time is.. unbearable.
With all that said, if they ever achieve anything approaching Firefox's compatibility and reliability, I will be their most ardent supporter. Until then I'll be here in these threads calling idiots naive.
everyone ever just saying "it is not possible",
I've definitely seen people saying they'll fail, with no arguments to back that up, and I stand with you against that kind of baseless speculation. But it's worth noting there are many folks bringing up thought-out technical disagreements with the project's decisions. Some may be more opinionated than others, but that's life.
finding some random comments from project founder to hate.
If you're referring to what I think you are, that's not it. People aren't chasing after random comments because they want to throw shit at Ladybird. It's called criticism. Criticism, if valid, is not the same as hate, and portraying people who bring up Andreas' actions—possibly those of most important person in the project—as one-dimensional haters is disingenuous.
But you know what? You and your opinion is not important. People are not doing this to make Linux competitor or Mozzila competitor but to have fun and learn something new.
But they're not? Ladybird has a fully-fledged US 501(c)(3) non-profit with clear ideals, a roadmap and even sponsors that have pledged over one million USD in funding combined (see Chris Wanstrath's post).
Haters gonna hate, I wish them luck. Failing is ok too.
Yes, that's true. Please don't disregard people offering valid criticism, though.
People are not doing this to make Linux competitor
Right, they're not trying to build a Linux competitor by building an Ubuntu Linux fork :)
Edit: Oh, you probably meant SerenityOS and not SymphonyOS
I’d love to be able to use Swift so I’m excited to what they’re going to bring to the ecosystem! Would be cool if there’s a place to contribute when Swift 6 comes out :))
I know some folks think this is annoying, but once again, note that if you're the kind of user who shuns Brave because the CEO does stupid shit every once in a while, you'll probably not look fondly upon Ladybird's project lead and main developer being scared of pronouns.
See this issue on github.
If you don't care about that, it's an interesting project. Can't say I approve, though.
Posting this to inform people and let each one decide what to do on their own. Don't harass anyone, please.
My idiology diverges significantly from the lemmy devs, but here we are.
My idiology diverges significantly from the lemmy devs, but here we are.
Would you be willing to elaborate on why that's relevant here? As in, what do you mean by this?
Because Lemmy and Ladybird are wildly different projects, tackling completely different issues, and consequently users interact with them and their developers in very different ways. To put it a little bluntly, I think that observation sounds insightful, but it's just silly when you dig deeper. I'd rather not waste time writing entire paragraphs based on an assumption of what you meant, though.
And I don't know about you, but I'm keeping my eye on Sublinks. I appreciate Lemmy as a piece of software, but it doesn't have my undying loyalty merely because I created an account on it, nor are it and its developers immune to my criticism just because I use it.
Edit: I'm worried that I might've been rude in my first 2 paragraphs. Sorry if it came across that way. To clear things up: I'm genuinely asking what's the idea behind your comment, because I could see it being several things and I don't want to have to answer all of them, or risk answering the wrong one.
https://lemmy.ml/post/19080982/12955657
I feel like Linus has said much worse things, without much remorse (the attacks didn't stop after he apologized), for many many years, but I have never seen anyone boycott Linux solely because of his attitude...
I think most people do not consider the Ladybird drama to be a big deal, it seems only a small vocal minority really care about it.
What do you want me to read here? I only saw three comments unrelated to anything I said.
I feel like Linus has said much worse things, without much remorse (the attacks didn't stop after he apologized), for many many years,
Linus had a problem with criticizing people's work respectfully. Rather, he'd straight up insult people, with little to no useful feedback, and people very much complained about it. Maintainers complained. It got to the point that he, thankfully, committed to taking a break from the kernel to work on improving himself. It wasn't just an apology. He has since gotten much better. When he regresses, it's entirely fair to criticize it.
but I have never seen anyone boycott Linux solely because of his attitude...
Then you'll be happy to discover that many people working on Linux were quite public about their disapproval of Linus' behavior back then. With him, with others, it was their complaints that got him to change.
I think most people do not consider the Ladybird drama to be a big deal, it seems only a small vocal minority really care about it.
Maybe. But it's not about the size of the group, it's about the complaints themselves. We don't decide whether something is an issue worth caring about based on how many people think so. That'd be horrible. Racism was once the issue of a vocal minority; thank goodness people didn't shut up about it and more eventually listened.
Andreas' behavior reflects poorly on the project as a whole and ought to change. It pushes away folks who could be part of the community and helping the project, be it as users, developers or financial supporters. My comments aren't intended to incentivize boycotting Ladybird because I don't like the man, they're meant to raise awareness of a serious issue in the hopes that, one day, perhaps he'll grow up like Linus did.
I'd never mention this out of the blue, but since you brought up Linus, here's my unnecessary fun opinion. I'd bet money that Andreas' takes on inclusivity wouldn't be appreciated by Linus, because the man's one deranged step away from calling pronouns woke.
That project doesn't deserve the hype.
I mean it has fuck all hype except the tiniest nichey audiences, so I guess that worked out.
If he think swift is the way to go, good for him. The code before swift is still open source, so interested user can fork it. What is there to hate?
It is his project and I'm not going to create an issue on github lambasting him, but I do have an opinion. He's clearly not an idiot, it just isn't a decision I agree with 🤷♂
Disagreement != hate. Life isn't made up of extremes.
Apple, I suppose. And the lower performance compared to C++ from what I have seen
The benchmarks I have looked at for Swift seem to show it being quite slow often, anyone who uses it for lower-level/systems stuff have some input?
https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/swift-gpp.html
With performance (and arguing over it) being a very big issue on modern browsers, I would be worried if it's really this bad for general web browsing.
Interesting choice, let's see how it goes
Rest in piss, Links2 it is. Maybe netsurf can complete their js engine in 3 billion years.
Going for the Arc route, interesting.
They probably wanted to use Rust but got frustrated by its struct and impl paradigm.
and the community not being transphobic
Pretty rude to Rust programmers not choosing Rust for the re write.
Rust already has Mozilla.
Rust is a lot more niche and intimidating of a language compared to Swift. Swift is familiar to C++ devs, while modernizing the language and toolchain, and providing safety guarantees.