Re: Why write an Ada web browser ?, was: Re: GNAT Ada - DLL - MSVC

[Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org>]

Simon Clubley wrote:
> 
> So, my question is, why write a whole new web browser in Ada ?

I would like a browser that is more reliable that the existing ones,
which crash regularly. Engineering a browser in Ada is likely to produce
a more reliable application.

I would like a browser/mail reader/news reader that is more secure than
the existing ones. Engineering it in Ada would be very helpful in
achieving that.

I would like a browser that gives the user control over what the browser
does, not the web page author. The page may request downloading a huge
graphic from ads.ripoff.com, but the user decides whether it does or
not. Cookie management built in. Cache management. The ability to go
back using the cache, not reloading the page. And so on. Writing a
browser from scratch is one way to achieve this. If you're going to do
that, then you might as well make it reliable and secure by doing it in
Ada.

Finally, if there did exist an open-source browser that was reliable,
secure, and gave the user control of the process, I suspect it would
become fairly popular. People would look at the source to see why it's
so much more reliable/secure/whatever than other browsers, and see that
it was in Ada. They might suspect that Ada had something to do with its
good features. More people might decide to use Ada in the future as a
result.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You empty-headed animal-food-trough wiper."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail