quickjs VS ladybird

This is a fantastic approach.

BTW, it looks like the js engine is "QuickJS" [0]. (I'm not familiar with it myself.)

I like it because sqlite by itself lacks a host language. (e.g., Oracle's plsql, Postgreses pgplsql, Sqlserver's t-sql, etc). That is: code that runs on compute that is local to your storage.

That's a nice flexible design -- you can choose whatever language you want. But quite typically you have to bring one, and there are various complications to that.

It's quite powerful, BTW, to have the app-level code that acts on the app data live with the data. You can present cohesive app-level abstraction to the client (some examples people will hopefully recognize: applyResetCode(theCode) or authenticateSessionToken(), or whatever), which can be refined/changed without affecting clients. (Of course you still have to full power and flexibility of SQL and relational data for the parts of your app that need it.)

[0] https://bellard.org/quickjs/

Considering the extremes of prolific developers gives interesting contrast to dogmas such as "functions/files should never be above x lines", where `quickjs.c` is 50k lines and has functions that are hundreds of lines long:

https://github.com/bellard/quickjs/blob/master/quickjs.c

(Obviously different approaches suites different circumstances.)

And some lightweight alternatives like Bellard's QuickJS (https://bellard.org/quickjs/) in C and Kiesel (https://kiesel.dev/) in Zig.

Built on a highly optimized JavaScript runtime powered by QuickJS, Query offers fast startup times and efficient execution. Its built-in caching mechanism further enhances performance by storing function responses, reducing database load and latency. This focus on speed makes Query a standout choice for server-side rendering, especially in applications with many components.

Where the previous SDK was built on top of the QuickJS JavaScript engine and the Javy runtime, the new SDK is built on top of the Firefox browser’s SpiderMonkey engine, and the Bytecode Alliance’s StarlingMonkey runtime and ComponentizeJS WIT bindings generator.

I'm currently using Bellard's QuickJS engine on a new TypeScript project.

Actually Ladybird had its own separate repo before merging with SerenityOS: https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird, so now it's like reverting it.

A browser is not a web app, it doesn't have a strict separation of "frontend" and "backend" in the same sense that a web app would have; the lines are drawn quite differently. The rendering engine is never "just" the rendering engine; you can't abstract or swap it without tremendous effort.

If you'd like to learn more about how a web browser project would organize its internal architecture, but are discouraged by the complexity of Chromium, Firefox, etc. I'd recommend source diving Ladybird (https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird), NetSurf (https://www.netsurf-browser.org/), or Dillo (https://www.dillo.org/).

I'd love to see a stable version of a brand new web browser, not based on Blink or Gecko, such as Ladybird or Flow Browser. Competition is a good thing.

note, native Windows is not currently supported:

https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird/issues/113

Google is dominating, pushing through Android and via Googles-Webservices and Microsoft is using it now. A reason to worry because developing new web-engine requires an big effort. For instance Microsoft only allows usage of Microsoft Teams Web with a webbrowser based upon Blink. So were back in 2002?

WebKit features also WebKit2Gtk (Epiphany) and Qt5-webkit (Otter) with native integration. They use the native toolkits, which is an advantage! Interaction with the open-source community around WebKit seems rather good and the engine is integrated by others. Gecko seem not to be integrated by others, but by forks only? You remember when Chrome was considered slick and fast? Originally Google used the native toolkit on every platform but know they use an own solution on every platform, like Firefox.

Maybe there is a new kid on the block:

https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird

Funny you should ask: https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird