[Sugar-devel] Browse and the move to WebKit

[Daniel Drake]

2011/6/22 NoiseEHC <NoiseEHC at freemail.hu>:
> Why do not you implement the new Browse in C/C++?

Sugar is developed as a Python-based platform.

> It would have three advantages:
> 1. It could reuse an existing WebKit browser's code.
> 2. It would not depend on incomplete/unmaintained python bindings.
> 3. It would be fast. At least it would not use 60M of python runtime memory
> per process.

The implementation plan I propose tackles all of those points.

I am proposing that webkit is embedded into an application, so it is
an existing browser, not a new one. If you think things like managing
back/forward would be difficult, take a quick look at the webkitgtk
API and think again. Or look at the webkit minibrowser.

The push for pygi means no depending on python bindings that need maintenance.

The move to pygi is expected to drop memory usage and improve startup time.

> Of course it would require reimplementing some simple toolbar and children
> would not be able to look into the browser's codebase (only though the web)
> but I think it would be an interesting option to consider. At least the 3.
> point could be important enough for the most used application in Sugar...

Yes, it would be a huge drop in maintainability, and the maintainance
problem is exactly why I dragged myself into this problem.

Unless you are proposing that all of Sugar moves to C as a base; that
may have its merits but is a separate discussion, and not one I'm
going to get involved with. Feel free to start a new thread / Feature
page.

Daniel