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OlafS25 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 10:08:11
#41 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@Hans

as I wrote I think the problem is how different amiga is compared to better known platforms with different concepts. That might be one of the reasons why users still use it but it makes it hard for newcomers to get in. And financially there is not much good reasons to invest lots of time to learn amiga api. The situation would perhaps improve if there would be modern RAD-Tools who hide some of the complexity (like Lazarus) but they are not available. Additional components that are needed are not available either so you would need to reprogram them or develop workarounds.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 25-Jan-2018 at 10:09 AM.

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Deniil715 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 11:03:00
#42 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-May-2003
Posts: 4236
From: Sweden

@Raffaele

I think people, especially non-codes, have a hard time to graps the capacity required to even start thinking about working with a web browser. kas1e's answer was correct, but also a bit unrealistic, which is why he added a whinkey-smiley.

The complexity is just so extreme it is very hard to get started. Most give up before even considering looking at the code. It takes several years of full time work to understand the majority of the code. Hopefully noone needs to barely understand more than 5-10% to fix the javascript endian-issues. That by itself it a lot - 10'th of thousands of lines of code, probably in over a 100 files.

There is no such thing as magic - not even in programming

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> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

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Chris_Y 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 11:47:28
#43 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jun-2003
Posts: 3203
From: Beds, UK

@Plaz

Quote:

Is netsurf code OS4 only?


No. The Amiga frontend works on OS4 and OS3.5. There are other frontends for other platforms too. Framebuffer works pretty much anywhere (inc. OS3.1).

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Raffaele 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 13:27:14
#44 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@wawa

Quote:

wawa wrote:
@Raffaele

Quote:
You are warned.


out of interest. what happened to the money you once gathered in order to fix odyssey javascript issues on big endian? have you donated it to any developer or have you refunded the donors?


Quote of money reached 700 euro in 2016.
During an entire year no Any Amiga developers responded to Bounty call, It happened that some donations made with time expiring were canceled so there are about 400 euro in the bounty cash.

It is too much low money for deadwood who fixed endian issue in Mac Safari. In my opinion he deserve at least almost 500 euro for a serious prize.

It was my culprit I awaited so much time hoping any Amiga developers to respond to Bounty call but Amiga Developers are notorious lazy and lacks of any intererst in fixing serious problems of Amiga existing software and then I feel myself responsible for deadwood for loosing 300 euro, so I decided all by myself I will add 100 euro to the actual 400 by picking It from my own pocket.
Being honest I must confess I am literally saving money in a Pig-Bank cent after cent.
Once I gather the relative amount of money to reach 500 euro I will make a payment to Bank and I will pay deadwood his 500 euro.

At this precise moment I saved 60 euro out of 100 necessary to reach 500 euro amount. It is a very effort to me to save money as I am jobless, and I rely in occasional jobs for my incomes and It took me almost whole 2017 to save 60 euro, but I created this Bounty and I feel responsible for It.

P.S. I was wondering why no Petty person in Amigaland in past six months still not asked me where are the bounty money. Thanks for being so petty I can have opportunity to tell community that I am still take care of money that are promised to deadwood.

Last edited by Raffaele on 25-Jan-2018 at 01:35 PM.

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Raffaele 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 13:32:07
#45 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@Hans

Quote:

Hans wrote:
@Raffaele

You misinterpret the "learn to code and help out" comments. That has nothing to do with superiority complexes. We'd love it if more people learnt to code and helped out. Or, if more of those who can code would help out on these projects.

If the webkit endianness issues are restricted to the Javascript interpreter, then perhaps the interpreter could be updated to always use the byte-swapping load/store instructions (which should make javascript code that assumes little-endianness work).** That would depend on how data is transferred from interpreted javascript to the rest of the system.

Based on wawa's comments, it sounds like it's still too hard for a newcomer to even compile the code. That's a serious barrier to people helping out...

Hans


** EDIT: I mean the interpreted load/store instructions, and NOT all loads/stores. It's the same thing that an x86 emulator would have to do.


How I desire that your interpretation of kas1e answer could be true... How I want...

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BSzili 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 13:49:30
#46 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 16-Nov-2013
Posts: 447
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

Quote:
It was my culprit I awaited so much time hoping any Amiga developers to respond to Bounty call but Amiga Developers are notorious lazy and lacks of any intererst in fixing serious problems of Amiga existing software and then I feel myself responsible for deadwood for loosing 300 euro, so I decided all by myself I will add 100 euro to the actual 400 by picking It from my own pocket.


Hahaha. I'm always amused by your attempts of trying to shame people into doing your bidding
Don't worry, the number of amiga devs are dwindling steadily, so you won't have to deal with those lazy indifferent primadonnas for much longer

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bison 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 14:23:37
#47 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 18-Dec-2007
Posts: 2112
From: N-Space

@Deniil715

Quote:
The complexity is just so extreme it is very hard to get started. Most give up before even considering looking at the code. It takes several years of full time work to understand the majority of the code.

Yes, this is exactly right. Learning to code is just the beginning. Learning a codebase can take months or years for a project of significant size. It's easy to nip in and fix buffer overruns and other minor problems, but extending or changing functionality is another matter entirely.

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Hypex 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 15:45:52
#48 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@AdvancedFollower

Quote:
What is really needed is a continuously updated browser based on one of the open web rendering engines, but who's going to maintain that? It would be nearly a full time job.


I think here we need to leverage the work of other people. Webkit is being developed for PPC. But it targets OSX 10.5 which would still be more advanced than FE AFAIK. Then there is TenFoutFox. Now that always runs slow to me, but it supports OSX 10.4, and there is also a MacOS9 port of it. Surely the FE API can match what there is from an API dating to last century? These are resources we should be using to keep up to date. At least that is what I think.

We just need MOSNINAE or XINE. MacOS9IsNotAnEmulator or XIsNotAnEmulator.

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Overflow 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 17:12:08
#49 ]
Super Member
Joined: 12-Jun-2012
Posts: 1628
From: Norway

@Raffaele

What kas1e says makes sense. Its not a superiority complex, its about time and resources.

Ive noticed how time is a scarse resource due to my reallife job, after accepting a manager position in addition to my normal day to day jobs. My plans to spend more time with the Vampire/Amiga has evaporated.

I expect there are developers able to code for Amiga that has the same timeconstraint issue.
500-700 euros is a token sum. Its meaningless amount, and only works for a developer that already had time enough on his hands to do it.

For most of us (coders and non-coders) its not Amiga that puts food on the table, and demanding anyone take on mammoth tasks like browsers for 700 euros are laughable.

Last edited by Overflow on 25-Jan-2018 at 05:20 PM.

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wawa 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 25-Jan-2018 18:47:27
#50 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 21-Jan-2008
Posts: 6259
From: Unknown

@Hans

Quote:
Based on wawa's comments, it sounds like it's still too hard for a newcomer to even compile the code. That's a serious barrier to people helping out...


ill have another go at it soon, i guess, but ill approach it from within aros toolchain. kalamatee made an appearance on aros-exec and dev ml yesterday, but he sounds like he has no acces to his sources, so his progress upon deadwoods work may so far be considered lost, i fear. and as bison or whoever says, having compiled the source and getting rid of few compiler warnings and doesnt make software maintained again. so do not count with me much.

Last edited by wawa on 25-Jan-2018 at 07:01 PM.

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simplex 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 2:54:25
#51 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 5-Oct-2003
Posts: 896
From: Hattiesburg, MS

@Overflow

Quote:
500-700 euros is a token sum.


Let's put some actual numbers on it: 700€ maybe compensates 10 hours of a merely competent software engineer's labor. Maybe.

Porting a web browser would take one person weeks of full-time work, as a minimum. But we're talking about a superhero, not an ordinary coder. It isn't just the HTML you have to make work, mind; there's the JavaScript, the CSS, the SSL, the plugins (especially Java... which also doesn't exist on Amiga), ...

All of this stuff, all of it, requires careful porting, because it deals with user interface and disk I/O and other issues that are platform-specific.

That's even before you consider that it has to be optimized, because an unoptimized browser will be more or less unusable, and only a fool tries to write optimized code from the outset (search that page for "premature optimization"). In a similar vein, the speed at which browsers on other systems depend is due in large part to carefully tuned symmetric multiprocessing, which, again, doesn't exist on any Amiga anymore.

A small group (46 contributors total but nearly all due to just 3) has been working on the Otter browser, which is more or less a mere front-end to the Webkit engine, for almost 4 years. It's a great browser overall (I use it as my primary browser on Linux) but it's still only in Release Candidate mode... and it sometimes crashes... and the JavaScript often hangs... and sometimes it doesn't open files correctly... and you get the idea. It's unpolished, but at least I can use it without worrying about Firefox's tracking me or hiding important settings or whatever.

In sum: 500-700€ wouldn't even start to compensate a coder for porting a browser. To say that people won't do it because their "lazy" is... "misguided," to put it politely. After all, it's not even a one-shot and done deal; just think of Timberwolf. The Friedens wrote it for ~7000€, then quit. From what I've heard, a lot of people considered it unfinished even then, and it's basically not working these days. (That may be an exaggeration, but I sure read a lot of complaints, and I notice that the open source code has been untouched for 2 years.)

I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just highly non-trivial and anyone who things that even 5000-7000€ would do the trick is plainly unfamiliar with Amiga's recent history, never mind 500-700€. People who can port a web browser for that amount of money can do a lot more things for a lot more money, and deserve to be paid for what they do. Complaining that they don't take time off from real life to satisfy one's fantasy is... again, "misguided."

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simplex 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 3:05:19
#52 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 5-Oct-2003
Posts: 896
From: Hattiesburg, MS

@simplex

I'll add one more thing.

You know why Android & iOS have good browsers? Because the companies that back them put good money into developing a web display engine as part of the OS API. And by "good money" I mean "more money than most of us here probably realize."

For example, any program on Android can display any web page simply by opening a pre-defined UI element. I forgot the precise name, but it really is that easy; I've done it myself in at least two apps. Darned convenient.

Thanks to that foresight, Android at least has multiple browsers available, because basically a developer just needs to whip up a UI. The HTML rendering is provided for you. Even the Duck Duck Go app, which isn't designed as a web browser, can be used to browse the web pretty effectively.

In similar fashion, at least one web browser on OSX uses/used the same engine that Apple uses in Safari, because it's something you can access through the APIs.

You want to know why Amiga doesn't have a single good browser? It's because Amiga's developers haven't developed any easily-accessed API like that. Why not? It's expensive. To see their priorities, see number6's threads about lawsuits over trademarks, and think about how much money has been sunk into lawyers these last couple of decades. (And I'm not blaming the lawyers; they're just doing their jobs, too.)

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Raffaele 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 7:22:03
#53 ]
Super Member
Joined: 7-Dec-2005
Posts: 1906
From: Naples, Italy

@BSzili

Quote:

BSzili wrote:
@Raffaele

Quote:
It was my culprit I awaited so much time hoping any Amiga developers to respond to Bounty call but Amiga Developers are notorious lazy and lacks of any intererst in fixing serious problems of Amiga existing software and then I feel myself responsible for deadwood for loosing 300 euro, so I decided all by myself I will add 100 euro to the actual 400 by picking It from my own pocket.


Hahaha. I'm always amused by your attempts of trying to shame people into doing your bidding
Don't worry, the number of amiga devs are dwindling steadily, so you won't have to deal with those lazy indifferent primadonnas for much longer


There are only two or three Amiga developers who seriously take care of bugs when they are signalled, Fab and maybe Broadblues, I don't remember...

The other seems always they do not care user messages...

Amiga devs number is dwidling...? I do not care too anymore...

It is sad as I love this platform, but it is infested by very mean people both users and developers, and I am asking myself really if it deserves to vanish as vapor dispersing these people in other realities of informstion technology. I am tired fighting for this platform.
I spent my best money in it, but it also gave me best moments of experience of computing, and also the worst moment in which I was literally discriminated as being Amiga user.
Here I encountered the worst exhalted people here as for example the italian Amiga developer who literally destroyed from the inside any project team he joined (you all know who I mean) and that was banned from any Amiga forum, or exhalted MorphOS people who even made critics to my religion just for the fact once I welcomed people in a Christmas message with a bless involving saints. Silly people.
Amiga world is a cage of fools.
At least in Windows and Machintosh world there are dozillions morons so the amiga morons who migrate there could made no serious damage to these platforms.

Last edited by Raffaele on 26-Jan-2018 at 07:45 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 26-Jan-2018 at 07:43 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 26-Jan-2018 at 07:37 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 26-Jan-2018 at 07:28 AM.

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Hans 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 9:05:08
#54 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 27-Dec-2003
Posts: 5066
From: New Zealand

@Raffaele

Wow that's really pessimistic and angry. Sounds like you need to take break. Find something else you enjoy.

Either way, yelling at people and insulting them (which is what you're doing, even if you didn't intend to) is no way to get them to help you.

Hans

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kamelito 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 12:54:32
#55 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 26-Jul-2004
Posts: 813
From: Unknown

@Hans

At one point a version of Webkit was working for PPC, then the next stop working.
What should be done is a DIFF between the two and try to fix it.
Then do that with every other versions.
You could take a shortcut and apply the fix to the latest version but others indianess problems might be presents too so better do it one at a time maybe.

Last edited by kamelit0 on 26-Jan-2018 at 12:54 PM.

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bitman 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 13:00:24
#56 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2008
Posts: 705
From: Fredericia, Denmark

What about QT browsers - wasn't Alfkil going to update his QT port to a more recent version.

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BSzili 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 13:05:44
#57 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 16-Nov-2013
Posts: 447
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

I can never get tired of your entitled rants

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utri007 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 13:54:53
#58 ]
Super Member
Joined: 12-Aug-2003
Posts: 1074
From: United States of Europe

@Raffaele

I have wrote messages for several amiga devs and always got answer with very nice attitude.

BSzili, has made lots of game ports and has answered nicely with several silly port requests. (some of them from me)
Olaf has been very active to fixin bugs and giving support for clib and samba wich he maintains. He solved Netsurf memory fragmention problem very fast, when reason was found.
Chris_Y has done lots of work for Netsurf both OS4 &OS3.5/9. He has answered every question, even when it is not related actual Netsurf but sdl fork.
Kasie has spend hours to making software for amiga. I remember this very well http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=6239&order=

So thank you all!

Raffaele you could reconsider your attitude. I you have problem with one, it OK and normal, but you have problems with everybody that is not normal.


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Hypex 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 14:33:32
#59 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@kas1e

Quote:
Of course, if only there will be no new big-endian cpus in any computer which will popular again (which is unluckily), so developers will again worry about big-endian cpus.


It's funny, I read about young programmers learning computer science on the net, and how the endian thing doesn't really come up. And if it does it is glossed over briefly as something that used to matter. Yet the fact is, code is written to only work on little endian. Modern code is meant to be written in a portable language, but this is simply not the case. Either the programmers are ignorantly writing code that accidently only happens to work on Intel CPUs and similar, or they are specially writing it for Intel endian. I see no grey area here. Unless you are writing hard code that dumps CPU variable memory to disk and reads it back again, which sounds like a security risk, code should be endian agnostic. But this is simply not the case.

There are examples of code that is written to be Intel endian. Things that read an ID off disk and then compare it with a reverse string. That sort of thing is going too far and raises a red flag that it broke the portable barrier. It is also unneccessary. As portable code can be writen that is both clean and readable that does ther same thing. With the compiler doing the dirty work as it should be left to doing whenever possible.

Quote:
And, to answer on next questions: its too late for architecture swtich.


What about and endian switch?

Regarding an architecture switch, it's been over ten years, Apple's late.

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jorit2 
Re: The Web browser situation
Posted on 26-Jan-2018 14:49:03
#60 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 22-Apr-2011
Posts: 243
From: Unknown

@Raffaele

Quote:
It was my culprit I awaited so much time hoping any Amiga developers to respond to Bounty call but Amiga Developers are notorious lazy and lacks of any intererst in fixing serious problems of Amiga existing software


Oh my ...

Quote:
and then I feel myself responsible for deadwood for loosing 300 euro, so I decided all by myself I will add 100 euro to the actual 400 by picking It from my own pocket.
Being honest I must confess I am literally saving money in a Pig-Bank cent after cent.
Once I gather the relative amount of money to reach 500 euro I will make a payment to Bank and I will pay deadwood his 500 euro.


Methinks you need a reality check ...

Evert

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