| ▲ | smartmic 11 hours ago |
| I am somewhat concerned about the volatility. All three languages have their merits and each has a stable foundation that has been developed and established over many years. The fact that the programming language has been “changed” within a short period of time, or rather that the direction has been altered, does not inspire confidence in the overall continuity of Ladybird's design decisions. |
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| ▲ | 0x00cl 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Ladybird as a project is not that old, and it's still in pre-alpha, if they are going to make important changes then it's better now than later. |
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| ▲ | jsheard 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I am somewhat concerned about the volatility. Not just volatility but also flip-flopping. Rust was explicitly a contender when they decided to go with Swift 18 months ago, and they've already done a 180 on it despite the language being more or less the same as it was. |
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| ▲ | zem 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | they tried swift, it didn't work, and they figured rust was the best remaining option. that's not "flip-flopping" (by which I assume you mean random indecisiveness that leads to them changing their mind for no reason) | | |
| ▲ | lioeters 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yup, this was not flip-flopping, it was willingness to be open to options, even if it means going back on a decision branch made earlier in the process. For the Ladybird project, now is the best time to be making a big decision like this, and it's commendable that the project lead was honest to recognize when an earlier attempt was not working, to be able to re-think and come to a better decision. I'm no fan of Rust, but for this project I think most of us would agree it's a better language than Swift for their purpose. |
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| ▲ | qingcharles 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They made a very pragmatic and sensible decision after reviewing Swift that it wouldn't be suitable for their purposes, so they shifted to the next best alternative. I think they reasoned it very well and made a great decision. | |
| ▲ | 0x457 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I guess they bet on Swift being more than Apple's blessed way of writing UI software. | |
| ▲ | fmajid 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not that they are loving Rust, but they realized going all-in on Swift means becoming sharecroppers on massa Tim Apple's plantation. |
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| ▲ | boxed 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| There's been some fun volatility with the author over the years. I told him once that he might want to consider another language to which he replied slightly insultingly. Then he tried to write another language. Then he tried to switch from C++ to Swift, and now to Rust :P |
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| ▲ | oblio 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Upside: he's learning? | | |
| ▲ | jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Indeed, and as a school those 18 months are well worth it, but it is in many ways also 18 months wasted. There is a strong sense of NIH with the Ladybird dev(s), and I wonder if that isn't their whole reason for doing this. I've seen another team doing something similar, they went through endless rewrite cycles of a major package but never shipped, and eventually the project was axed when they proposed to do it all over again, but this time even better. | | |
| ▲ | rjh29 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The sense of NIH is from Serenity, and that was probably the reason for Jakt's existence too. Now it's spun off into its own project there is a lot more pragmatism. | | |
| ▲ | jacquesm 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Well, here's to hoping because we really need a stand-in for FF. I realize the irony here in terms of that being the ultimate 'NIH' project but that one I can get behind because the browser landscape is much too fragile. Of course they might end up taking users away from FF rather than from Chrome, Edge or Safari. | | |
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