[webkit-dev] Announcing new port: Nix

[Ryosuke Niwa]

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Hugo Lima <hugo.lima at openbossa.org> wrote:

> 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.
>

Interesting. That sounds a lot like Chromium's WebKit API layer.  If I
remember correctly, that layer had to be modified constantly as
WebCore/WebKit code was refactored so I'm a bit worried about this.

But it sounds like you're suggesting that Nix port's maintainers will be
responsible for making any code changes necessary to support
WebCore/WebKit/WebKit2 refactoring?

- R. Niwa
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