Rob Fahrni
Anyone else think Apple should rewrite Safari in Swift?
It would be a massive undertaking and could be done piecemeal. E.G. Rendering, or perhaps just the UI chrome, for starters.
I heard somewhere itβs the most used piece of Apple software. It would certainly make life interesting for the Safari/WebKit team. π
Lisa Melton
@fahrni Let me be blunt.
It would be foolish and irresponsible to re-write the C++ codebase of Safari, particularly WebKit, in Swift. We're talking about millions of lines of code here.
There is little, if anything, to gain from such a venture and so much to lose. Doing so would also almost certainly stall or significantly slow development.
This is a bad idea.
So, your first instinct to admonish developers to not rewrite their software is the good one.
Rob Fahrni
@kdawson @lisamelton What say you, Lisa?
I am always saying to folks βDonβt rewrite your software. Just advance it gradually because rewrites are expensive.β
But, I said this because Iβd really love to see Apple pull off a major piece of software in Swift.
Keith Dawson
@fahrni Wonder what @lisamelton would think of this idea?
Black Kitten Terra
I have yet to see a development discussion as seriously clear cut as @lisamelton talking about when not to rewrite a web browser.
Barry Schwartz π«
@DivineKestrel @lisamelton @fahrni @kdawson
"A human life would be better devoted to the perfection of painting by numbers than to such a project" is how I would have put it, but then I tend not to get my point across. :) (This is me saying I agree with you.)
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