[webkit-dev] Announcing new port: Nix

[Hugo Lima]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Darin Adler <darin at apple.com> wrote:
> On Sep 12, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Hugo Lima <hugo.lima at openbossa.org> wrote:
>
>> the Nix implementation will just delegate the implementation to the application
>
> I think what this means is that Nix will export interfaces that closely match WebKit internals as the Nix API to WebKit.
>
> This may well create a long term problem for the WebKit project. Changes that would be fine for other platforms, internal restructuring, could be a problem for the Nix platform. Generally speaking, this is what the platform layers in the WebKit directory provide; a port that omits this level of abstraction and indirection could pose some serious challenges to us as we make major changes to WebKit internals while preserving external API compatibility.
>
> I’m not saying this is an immediate show-stopper, but it’s a critical topic to discuss.

This is the challenge, the Nix::Platform API need to focus on the
primitives of the problem and not just being just a thin wrapper tied
to the WebCore implementation, if the internals of WebCore change we
just need to solve the problem on the glue code between WebCore and
our API without need to change either, our API or the WebCore change.

This is a issue that could happen in the future for sure, but I don't
think it will be a show-stopper for any WebCore refactor, it will just
add a bit of work to the Nix port layer the same way it will add to
other ports, maybe a bit more for us due to the "low level" nature of
our API, but not much if we do our job right.

> -- Darin