Re: Shapes layout proposal

[John Palmieri <johnp martianrock com>]

Lars Clausen wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Lennon Day-Reynolds wrote:
>
> > Okay, I just have to weigh in here...this looks like too much fun.
> >
> > Cyrille Chepelov wrote
> >
> >  > Anyway, if you prove me wrong with working code (I've got a P133 to
> >  > check the speed side...), then alright, I would have been wrong  [:-)]
> >
> > It should be at least two to three times faster than Netscape 4.X
> > (simpler DOM, no JavaScript, faster parsers, etc.), so if that P133
> > can do any web browsing, I think we're okay. No, it's not going to
> > compete with well-tuned single-purpose C code, but you should be able
> > to maintain and extend the app in a fraction of the time it takes
> > currently, as well as share more code and resources with other
> > applications, since the design will be more familiar to new developers.
>
> Let me join into the fray:)
>
> Netscape 4.X does not use JavaScript to render (except pages that use
> JavaScript, but I tend to avoid them and run with JavaScript turned off).
> Mozilla, however, uses XML internally to define everything, including
> menus, dialogs and rendering, and it's annoyingly much slower than
> Netscape.  More flexible, yes, but it should take almost a second to render
> an ASCII page from memory cache.  If Netscape 4.X vs. Mozilla is any
> comparision, then I shall veto this proposal (under the powers vested to me
> by Eris:).
>
> In any case, this is such a major restructuring that we have better things
> to do first.
>
> -Lars
>
> --
> Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause) | Hårdgrim of Numenor
> "I do not agree with a word that you say, but I    | Retainer of Sir Kegg
> will defend to the death your right to say it."    |   of Westfield
>     --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire   | Chaos Berserker of Khorne
>
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Hehe, didn't know I would cause such a commotion.  Well in light of the comment
about Mozilla I must say that it isn't the XML stuff that is slowing it down.  It
is the feature bloat and memory leaks.  Not to mention new object technology like
XPCOM that hasn't been fully optimized.  Actually the new version .91 is quite
fast once it is loaded and providing you don't open too many windows.  That again
has to do with the memory leaks.  Hey it is still beta.  The greatest thing that
the XUL stuff in mozilla allows you to do is to write new apps fast.  Look at the
side projects under Mozilla.  Mozilla is a browser but they have it doing IRC,
code editing, consoles, etc.   I think Dia is that kind of killer app that can be
extended into areas the original authors didn't think of.  I want to avoid feature
bloat by providing simple XML dtd's to handle layout and a few simple widgets that
can be used to enter data.  I'm not going to go as far as Mozilla to define my own
XML native widget set.  All event handling will be done in C and optionally
scripting languages such as Python which is 100 times faster than javascript
(ECMAScript).

> > In any case, this is such a major restructuring that we have better things
> > to do first.

Well that is why this is open source.  Gentlemen sit back and wait 'n see.  Those
who are interested will help out.  Those who are not can work on the parts that
they feel as more important.

Lennon, if you would like to join our small band of merry XML men to help enhance
Dia - e-mail me.

-J5