[webkit-dev] Some thoughts about platform flags

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Sep 24, 2008, at 10:10 PM, Amanda Walker wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 7:25 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com>  
> wrote:
>> On Sep 24, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Darin Fisher wrote:
>>> I don't think anything about our port implies hosted in a rendering
>>> subprocess.  Our port works perfectly well in a single process  
>>> traditional
>>> browser model.  We build two embedding apps based on our port of  
>>> WebKit:
>>> test_shell and chrome.  The former is like a mash-up of DRT and  
>>> Spinneret.
>>
>> OK; that appears to disagree with what Amanda said above.
>
> Not really--our architectural changes were made to support
> multiprocess rendering, but they do not require it.  test_shell still
> renders into a bitmap and then blits that to the OS window, it just
> does it all within a single process.  But all of the drawing, event
> handling, geometry management, etc. go through the same set of host &
> delegate interfaces that the multiprocess app does, rather than
> talking to the top level view(s) directly.  The implementations of
> those interfaces in test_shell are just a lot simpler.

What do you think would be a more accurate (but succinct) way to  
describe the purpose of the changes or the feature they enable? Is  
"multi-process" close enough to accurate or is there a better way to  
put it? I ask because I am hoping we can pick some ifdef flags that  
are based on the features being added or the technologies being used,  
and not just a catchall based on the embedding product. As I mentioned  
before, our experience with catchall ifdefs like that has been poor,  
and once they get into the source they can be a lot of work to untangle.

Regards,
Maciej