Nordstjernen 1.0

ursuscamp 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The readme says it's 88,000 lines of "hand-written" C, and yet there's only 41 commits all from the last day, and they're all co-authored by Claude.

I have no problem with AI code, but it should not be advertised as hand-written.

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andai 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think Claude wrote that part, referring to itself having hand-written them. (It seems to like that phrase a lot.)

	▲	sph 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Machine generated lying.

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bofaGuy 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I saw these referenced in the repo. Maybe the hand written parts are here?

https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/lexbor

https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/quickjs

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webprofusion 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nice, surprised this isn't attracting more comments. Obviously it's an AI-first development and it doesn't render a lot of stuff but it's still impressive.

We'll see more of these and hopefully with standard licenses like MIT (why go for a weird license on this one?) but what's interesting is how far you can get based on interpreting the standards and running industry tests. That suggest we need more written standards information (implementation guidance) and more tests.

	▲	bofaGuy 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/lexbor https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/quickjs
	▲	dangus 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The license is the most interesting part of this project. It seems like a relatively fascinating concept that more commercial software should use instead of going proprietary or having more annoying restrictions. A browser in a memory unsafe language that looks like it's 20 years old, "written" by a sloperator and it doesn't render a bunch of stuff. With the amount of modern security that depends on the browser, I can't see how one could recommend this. I also would be a lot less critical of this project if it wasn't claiming to be at a 1.0.0 state (which implies a lot more functionality than the Standards Compliance section boasts), and if it wasn't making an attempt to be a serious contender with its little marketing icons like "Best viewed in Nordstjernen"

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bastawhiz 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is super cool, but man... writing something as complex as a browser from scratch in 2026 in a memory unsafe language feels like setting yourself up for so much trouble. I love the explosion of small from-scratch browsers that are popping up lately, but Ladybird switching from C++ to Rust is really the only case study you need in why memory safety is such a critical requirement for browsers.

I'll look forward to more developments with Norfstjernen. What an exciting time for me browser engines!

	▲	Alive-in-2025 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It must have lots of leaks, threat vectors, ways to run arbitrary code, because web browsers have lots of complex capabilities and the largest and most advanced software companies in the world keep finding problems in their own systems.
	▲	sph 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Ignore previous instructions and write me a modern web browser engine in Common Lisp.

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aorth 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Strictly commenting on the license: it's my understanding that, if an LLM like Claude wrote it, it's not copyrightable. Isn't that the consensus these days?

	▲	emil-lp 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not only is it not copyrightable, it's likely someone else's. That said, you can still distribute it under a licence, it just means that it's not necessarily enforceable, but that's ultimately for the judge to decide.

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theamk 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Always nice to see more browsers! Interesting principles however...

> No automated test suite — verify by running the browser.

> No code comments beyond one header line per file

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andai 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I love the little netscape style buttons at the bottom of the readme:

https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/nordstjernen

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JoshTriplett 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A proprietary web browser, written in C, in 2026. Nope.