From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,1943b1e68472411f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-19 08:15:04 PST Message-ID: <3D109E89.40C228CC@sympatico.ca> From: David Marceau X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.17-10mdksmp i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why write an Ada web browser ?, was: Re: GNAT Ada - DLL - MSVC References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 11:08:57 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.92.166.10 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1024499497 65.92.166.10 (Wed, 19 Jun 2002 11:11:37 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 11:11:37 EDT Organization: Bell Sympatico Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!torn!webster!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26385 Date: 2002-06-19T11:08:57-04:00 List-Id: Preben Randhol wrote: > > Jeffrey Carter wrote on 13/06/2002 (00:41) : > > > > 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. > > Why on earth do you want to put all these things into single > application? I would rather have two optimised applications that can > talk to eachother then one single application. One reason is that each > project would be smaller. The other is that when I use a web browser I > don't want to be forced to also have its mail reader installed as I > might want to use some other program or visa versa. At the moment I use > Galeon (a web browser only) which uses the Mozilla redering engine. > > -- > Preben Randhol �For me, Ada95 puts back the joy in programming.� I apologize for not being clear. I meant different applications: ada-web-browser, ada-mail-reader, an ada-news-reader. That said the underlying infrastructure. i.e. sockets, ssl, widgets(gtkada like) it's understood could be shared among them. Concerning your reference to Mozilla, IMHO this dream ada-web-browser is not just a re-write of Mozilla in Ada; it's an overhaul of the architecture with different priorities in the requirements. Some algorithms could be inspired from Mozilla however the ada-web-browser architecture must ensure security, reliability and long-term maintenance are the top-priority requirements for every service in every api. IMHO as a consequence of in-process XP-COM being insecure, if any XP-COM is used in the ada-web-browser-architecture at all, it should be out-of-process. I've explained why out-of-process is better in a previous CLA email. What are the first steps in order to encourage this further? I would recommend having a good understanding of Mozilla core though before embarking into this. Deciding which gui with ada is a good question. I would propose whatever is written should be isolated from the gui anyways in order to switch gui sdks for different reasons. I could name a few good reasons for this: 1)embedded system single purpose gui target and 2)Win32 and X-Window targets Note how I intentionally left JVM out of this. The infrastructure built on top of target 1) and 2) will deal with secure out-of-process plug-ins compiled for the target in-mind. I like the ada mentality of dare I say "write once, compile everywhere once" :) But who's kidding who. Reality is there are many versions of JVM for every machine/OS(i.e. phones(j2me), smartcards(javacard), pcs(java). There are many versions of java/JNI for every OS. There are many versions of gnat for every OS. There are many versions of gcc for every OS. There's a lot of compiling going on using any language. I would have peace of mind running an ada-compiled embedded system that could download out-of-process plugins and and run them as another process with less privileges on the phone/handheld/javacard/pc.... Among the plug-ins could be an ada-web-browser. But remember this is all a foggy dream :) Sant� bonheur, David Marceau