- Joined
- Oct 14, 2024
don't worry guys once our AI model has scraped Blacked.com we will finally have AGI
Modern Web Woes - I'm mad at the internet
- Thread starter byuu
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2022
I made an app for my company that compiles to native for all platforms I released it on. It's nothing special, but the simple fact that it's an actual application and not just a broken browser displaying a shitty ad hoc web page makes me feel superior to 90% of modern programmers.
Bzk
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
This is indeed the path my company has decided to go down. The backend of the product we use is, quote, "in the process of transitioning from utilizing stored procedures to C# assemblies" for its database logic, and they will be releasing a monthly update where they literally rewrite the core logic for chunks of the application while their customers are using it, with no ability to opt out of the changes if they do something unexpected or undesired, and their "helpdesk," which is what I am expected to interface with when they fuck up and push an update that halts my entire company's ability to operate, is seriously the most useless pile of curry-smelling shit I've ever seen despite us having the "high-tier" assistance package with the vendor. I literally have no idea what we're going to do when (not if) the vendor pushes out a bad update.
I've been able to read through the source code of our current on-premises deployment for years to maintain, modify, and write applications to interface with it due to its complete lack of useful documentation, and can confidently say that their software is so spaghetti-coded that I believe there are almost no people at the vendor company who can actually understand what's happening at this point, so that tracks with their helpdesk being woefully incompetent even when getting past the level 1/2 dipshits. The only reasons it continues to be a successful product are that nine layers deep into stored procedure calls the patch comments transition from being performed by "v.sanjar" in 2022 to "d.johnson" in 2003, and their customers don't want to transition to a competitor after using the same product for literal decades, so they're stuck with the vendor treating them like shit and charging smaller companies without competent IT people out the ass for "technical assistance." It's classic capital-backed-acquisition corner-cutting bullshit.
The performance woes in my original post remain unchanged. I won't be automated or consulted out of my job at this position, but I have a bad feeling that I'm going to ragequit out of sheer frustration before the migration is over.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2014
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2024
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2018
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2024
Pretty sure that message is because Cloudflare is being used to protect the site, but they have noticed that the site is streaming media through their proxy as opposed to just website/browsing traffic. Which is against their terms for free accounts.
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2014
Back in 2005, if you use a 2000 browser, chances are a site you visit will still work.
Same with a site in 2010 with a 2005 browser.
Maybe less likely with a site in 2015 with a 2010 browser.
Definitely less likely with a site in 2020 with a 2015 browser.
But in 2025, using a browser from 2020? Seems that many if not most sites will be broken, or not even load: the site is more or less nonfunctional, it throws a "your browser is outdated" BS message at you, or you get some kind of "insecure connection" error. And in any case a 5 year old browser is a big security risk unless you know those sites.
Same with a site in 2010 with a 2005 browser.
Maybe less likely with a site in 2015 with a 2010 browser.
Definitely less likely with a site in 2020 with a 2015 browser.
But in 2025, using a browser from 2020? Seems that many if not most sites will be broken, or not even load: the site is more or less nonfunctional, it throws a "your browser is outdated" BS message at you, or you get some kind of "insecure connection" error. And in any case a 5 year old browser is a big security risk unless you know those sites.
I've never really known what websites gain from locking out outdated browsers, what they stand to gain or lose from it other than just forcing everyone to comply with the status quo is beyond me.
It seems like every other month there's a new critical CVE in either firefox or chrome that immediately renders any prior version before a fix not only outdated but directly hazardous to use, and since every existing browser is dependent on those two you get constant updates. Browsers just do so much shit now that there's bound to be messed up code somewhere that can be maliciously abused. Worst part is they aren't getting any less complicated either.
Maybe I'm the one forgetting history but did older browsers really get patched/updated to a comparable frequency as new ones do? I don't recall ever having to update IE, or Opera (Presto), or even old Chrome really, as much as I do with the current browsers I use
Combustion Engine
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2024
That's by design. It's not as bad as it was last decade when every website was abusing some jquery abomination and things were changing too rapidly before settling, at least before ES6 came along, but all those libraries explicitly support only the latest stable version, and things do (and will) break all the time. Not that you should ever get to that point so far behind with updates.
Yes, at least monthly, sometimes multiple times in one. It may be more noticeable now because browsers really, really, really love to nag you about those updates and making a pain to shut them the fuck up, and because security expectations are infinitely higher now, for most people their browser is the only line of separation nowadays, and not just for browsers alone but anything embedding them. That doesn't mean most updates are about security, looking at some of the latest changelogs for Firefox I only see fixes for the endless things they're expected to support today.
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2021
I agree with you 100% in principle but the web is and always has been a clusterfuck of massive proportions. Back in those days you would have to bundle polyfills and all sorts of other shit to get sites working. Browsers actually have more compatibility today then ever, but this is due to everything now just being Chrome IMO.
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2014
Getting sorta tired of "Google Chrome" and that monopoly Google has on the web because of that browser being almost the only standard.
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2021
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2024
engine written in 
Rust
Bzk
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
This is a cool project that I've been following for a while (along with its former parent SerenityOS), but it's obviously highly unlikely that a bunch of talented autists on Github will be able to create an alternative to V8/Blink that is in any way viable. I'm sure they have the technical ability to create a decent product, but the nuances with building a new rendering engine in particular - think of the billions of webpages that use tricks to get shit rendered properly that only work with Blink, which themselves make things look weird in Gecko - are probably going to keep the project relegated to a tiny niche that isn't going to challenge even Firefox's market share.
Also, the project's CoC explicitly states that they don't care about "problematic worldviews" and just want people who are interested in the project, which is pretty cool.
Sanest Rust project admin
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2024
HalHalliday
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2025
Are we going to be using V8/Blink/Chrome, etc. in 10 years? How about 20 years? 100 years? If you admit the possibility that there will be something different, then it's only a matter of time.
Therefore, by definition, projects like Ladybird are both viable and inevitable. It might not be what we end up using, but it will happen, and it can only happen if people are working on it and challenging how things are right now.
The same logic applies to, for example, OSes. If you dismiss the possibility of one programmer making a new one, then you admit that, what we have is what we will always have. All great software projects started with one person.
The arguments about scale or complexity are foolish. In essence, it means nothing can change. I reject that premise.
There will be something different when a different rich corporation wills it to be so, not when a github repository decides it. This isn't the 2000s, there's no upstart software team that's going to massively upturn the status quo, any major player in the corpo tech scene that fails now is and will be due to catastrophic internal incompetence or someone just as bad upstaging them.
What we have is not what we will always have, but it will likely never be what we should ideally have, that things will always change does not mean it is likely to change in the favour of us ("us" as in the type of people that would like something like ladybird to reasonably upset the status quo) because the means for change in situations like these have long since moved out of the hands of the individual, and most individuals are passive retards anyway and aren't going to budge from standards for any forward thinking reason. I'd love ladybird to be successful, but "success" for it would be, in the best case scenario, maybe taking 4-5% of the browser engine market share long-term.
You can call this doomerism, and it is, but considering how much is stacked against a development team with hazy long term prospects (Blink has been maintained for 12 years now, what are the logistics of a (completed) ladybird engine being maintained for even half as long?), it is hard to envision something that can compete with Google that doesn't tap into the kind of mentality that brings about something like Google in the first place. "Projects like Ladybird" are not inevitable, that change is inevitable doesn't equate the two together at all. I'm not saying to not try regardless, but change being meaningful in my active lifetime is a bit more appealing to me than the alternative, if I have no means of speeding up the process and it doesn't do so itself I have no reason to suddenly become idealistic about it.
What does it mean to make a new one in this instance? If you mean that as forking an existing OS (Linux) then yeah sure, otherwise then no, you can't just "make a new one", at least on the scale of Operating Systems that have become standard for consumer use. Much like what I mentioned above, "one guy" isn't going to will that to not be the case, it will be someone with actual money that will make it happen.
HalHalliday
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2025
I reject this. And I don't think your view is "doomerism". It's realistic. The amount of work needed to get something off the ground today is enormous. I don't blame you for thinking that one person "can't possibly do something like this." However, if you take that premise at face value - you're done. We're done. Nothing fundamentally new will ever be made. And that just seems silly.
I mean new OS, not a fork. Carmack recently talked about how a new OS is impossible because even Meta couldn't do it. I would argue it's because it's Meta that they couldn't do it. Too big, too fat. But then again, who am I to disagree with Carmack.
All I'm trying to say is that disregarding the possibility of making anything new makes that a reality.
Too complex, too big. But that was always true. Since the time when COBOL was king. Even when Linus decided to make his UNIX-like kernel. Everything that starts must start small. You'll never get parity with capability on day one. Even Galileo's heliocentric model wasn't on par with geocentrism when it was first published.
I also don't think what exists today will go away. I'm convinced that, for example, Win32 will outlive both Windows and Microsoft. It will be maintained, and so could Ladybird. No project starts with a 12-year maintenance plan. In fact, a lot of software that started with "this will be it, from now to forever" failed. One look at IBM's history underscores that point many times over.
In regards to inevitability, yes, the future doesn't have to go in your or our favor. But it might. That's the whole point. Everyone always says that something is not possible, and then no one ever starts anything. I see that often at work with younger guys. Always an easy way out, always a black box, some dependency. And then they talk about "impostor syndrome." Do you know why you feel like an impostor? Because you are! And it's not your fault.
Your post and the previous poster's seem to me to hang on "how many" people use something. Because Ladybird might be 5% of the market, so what? Does it need to be 100%? When does it stop being a failure? If the next browser comes out and also makes 5%, does that suddenly make making a browser "possible for developers"? Will it make it not that scary, crazy, huge, or complex? Where's the cut off?
If I didn't address some of your points, I apologize.
I understand your viewpoint very well. I hear it often, or variations of it. I think I'm just disappointed with VC and programming culture, that shoots down anything truly crazy, like reworking fundamental tech, as impossible, and then props up yet another rearrangement of the stack as the next big insane thing, as if that's an achievement.
It should be possible to engineer things.