soundmodel wrote: ↑2024-02-26, 10:15
Because if it's malicious code then at least it compromises only some browser environment, not parts of the OS or other software. I am just finding that for browsers the combination of Native messaging + WASM + JS/HTML/CSS has about the same as XPCOM, but it's just better abstracted. I would see XPCOM as generating Native messaging + WASM + JS/HTML/CSS from a configuration file though. XPCOM sounds like its place could me more along Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator
https://www.swig.org/. This is also suggested here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla_2/XPCO ... plications
The thread could've asked about XPCOM/XUL.
The thing is, though, I feel like you're ignoring an important context here. This isn't just some random forum that discusses the benefits and disadvantages of various toolkits and frameworks. This is the Pale Moon forum, a place that is mostly dedicated to Pale Moon development, and also to the development of XUL extensions and other applications based on the UXP platform. People here are generally pretty invested in this platform.
Given that context, what exactly is it you want me to say? That XUL might not be the best choice for new projects in all cases? Well, it's not like we're going around seriously advocating for XUL to be used in new projects, though it would obviously be nice for us if more people did use it in new projects. Most of the desire to keep it around comes from people who have existing investments in XUL and don't want to rework their entire project to rely on other stuff instead just because Mozilla decided it doesn't need to exist anymore. I think we've been pretty transparent about that fact. Do you want me to say that what we've spent the last 6 years working on doesn't need to exist? Well, I'm obviously not going to agree with that, so if you're waiting for me to say that, you'll be waiting a long time.
After working with this code for 5 years, I have mostly come to the conclusion that Mozilla has been hemorrhaging the institutional knowledge they need to keep their codebase alive and properly documented since the death of Netscape/AOL, and is slowly declining for a reason. Chromium inherited the benefits of KHTML which was better designed from the ground up. It's not that Google's engineers are so much better or that Google has more money, though that helps... it's that they had a better foundation to start with, because they built on KHTML. Plenty of Google's past projects have flopped, and Microsoft had plenty of money to throw at Internet Explorer as well, yet they couldn't keep that relevant.
Frankly, XUL was the only thing Mozilla ever had going for them, and the only reason why anyone cared to use their browser over Chrome or IE in the first place. I suspect a great deal of Firefox's remaining market share is actually forks of Firefox that falsely report their useragent rather than actual Firefox, and that Mozilla has even fewer users than they think. The fact that most of those users are on desktop would seem to underscore that possibility. There's been Waterfox, SeaMonkey, Pale Moon, and there are even forks of Pale Moon that target older operating systems like New Moon. Many Mozilla forks have kept XUL around, with only Waterfox abandoning the technology and accepting modern Firefox as a substitute. Even then, that decision resulted in Waterfox Classic forking off from Waterfox. But overall, if you look at the big picture, Mozilla is slowly dying, and all their forks are dying too. The ecosystem of Mozilla and forks is bitterly divided and fighting over a small desktop marketshare and ancient grudges, as Mozilla has failed to make inroads on mobile for the exact same reason why they couldn't supplant IE in the 1990s... their engine is not superior, and they are not the default browser on any mobile operating system. I mean, sure, maybe it is fair to say our project is not relevant... but only if you also concede that Firefox was never that relevant to begin with, and forks of it are by default even less relevant. From that perspective, I suppose I could see your point.
XUL was never perfect, mind you, but it was the one major thing people valued in Firefox that Chrome didn't have. Now, Firefox has nothing to offer that cannot be found in Chrome. XUL is probably mostly irrelevant by now... and Firefox is
even more irrelevant, because it's missing the one thing that used to make Firefox relevant. So fine, I'm answering your question... XUL is irrelevant to most people, because Firefox is and always was irrelevant to most people, as is anything forked from it. Firefox was never more relevant than IE back when everyone was using Windows, and it's not more relevant than Chrome now that everyone is using Android. But... a few people bought into Mozilla's hype surrounding XUL, and put all their faith in that, invested in it, touted it as a reason to use Firefox and built stuff on top of it hoping to showcase how amazing the project was. And it was those people that suffered the most when Mozilla abandoned the technology and left it in the hands of the community.
The other thing to keep in mind, is that we are not the original architects of XUL, and there are limits to the degree to which we can be held accountable for its design and architecture. We inherited a lot of the shortcomings and awkward parts of the technology from Mozilla when we forked off, and none of the original people who designed or implemented it came from Mozilla to work with us. So we are still learning a lot about the inner workings of it. Mozilla left the documentation in a terrible state, and we only recently managed to restore XULRunner to a working state. XUL as it exists in our codebase is more of a life preserver for existing XUL projects than it is a choice I could heartily recommend for new projects... although if people did want to build on top of it and work with us to address some of the issues, that would obviously help us out.
"The Athenians, however, represent the unity of these opposites; in them, mind or spirit has emerged from the Theban subjectivity without losing itself in the Spartan objectivity of ethical life. With the Athenians, the rights of the State and of the individual found as perfect a union as was possible at all at the level of the Greek spirit." -- Hegel's philosophy of Mind
