One is creating a compiler.
That fundamental building block of many programming languages translates the more human-understandable code into something a computer understands.
Another and far more ambitious challenge is building an operating system.
The scope is almost limitless.
You could create a command line operating system that works on limited hardware or on a low-level machine.
This is the approach many browsers take.
A battle that even the venerable Firefox is slowly losing.
Or you could do all three.Andreas Klingis one of the people trying to do that.
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And when that ended, what was I supposed to do?
I now had these full empty days with nothing to do and all this energy.
And I just needed something to do.
So, I just started programming, which is what I always do.
And I started building an operating system because I thought that would be fun.
The SerenityOS codebaseis a monorepo, meaning that contributors can find the code for all functionality in one place.
One of the most popular components of SerenityOS wasthe Ladybird web app.
More on that later.
At one point, nearly the same number of contributors were involved with Ladybird as Serenity.
People were eager to work on this and, more importantly, to finance its development.
I reached out to Wandsworth and asked, Hey, do you like Serenity?
Do you like browsers, too?
The online window drive
This isnt Klings first experience building browsers.
For two years, he worked on building browsers for theQtteam at Nokia.
In the early 2000s, Qt was pushed as an option to counter the rise of Android and iOS.
So why build a new web client at all?
Its an interesting time for thebrowser market.
Even Safari accounts for only 17% of that number.
Could Signal survive on just donations if its user base scaled fromthe current70 milliontoWhatsApps2 billionper month?
Could Mastodon survive if it scaled fromits10 millionuserstothe3 billionper month of Facebook?
It would be a challenge.
But again, you dont need a large share of users to be viable and do something meaningful.
web client standards
Another reason for building a new web client and rendering engine is standards.
The webs loose standards body,the W3C, publishes specifications and standards on many web features.
Kling hopes Ladybird will stick to and implement the W3C specifications as much as possible.
Sticking to the spec is one big reason people like what were doing.
And its a big part of why we want to make a surfing app.
We want to make one that follows the specs, and that proves that the specs are implementable.
Despite its early stages, Ladybird already has representatives in W3C working groups contributing to the project.
And this [plan to stick to spec] is sort of what got them interested.
At Ladybird, Kling aims to prioritise the largest impacts.
I dont have a full picture of everything needed, but its fairly complicated, he says.
One issue were having is that we have to figure out what gives the most benefit across the board.
We want broad compatibility at reduced fidelity with a large part of the popular web.
As Kling says, sometimes this leads to less popular decisions.
We are deferring on a bunch of things that are not popular.
So were deferring on Windows and mobile.
iOS outside of Europe is basically locked down surfing app-wise anyway.
The web and how we interact with it is in a state of change.
A change we can be an active part of if we want it.
Weve all been shepherded into this reality where a big advertising company controls the web, says Kling.
Weveacceptedthatthatsjustthe way things are.
And then the idea that maybe it doesnt have to be that way.
I think that appeals to people.
Story byChris Chinchilla
Technology writer, podcaster, and video maker by day.
Fiction, games, and music by night.
chrischinchilla.comTechnology writer, podcaster, and video maker by day.
Fiction, games, and music by night.
