badtuple4d ago

I'm compiling a list of projects that are "everything projects". Like web browsers, or game engines, or VTTs, etc. Where at first it seems like "just" a display of some file, but you end up having to do crazy rendering, storage, audio, video, configuration, accessibility, arbitrary user input and fields, scripting and plugins, implement uncountable formats and specs, etc.

Anyone have a better name for these? Any examples that'd be surprising?

Show threadbadtuple4d ago
Someone just said PDF reader. That intuitively feels right, but I've never looked close enough.
Show threadIrenes (many)4d ago
@badtuple Second Life
Show threadIrenes (many)4d ago
@badtuple oh and our favorite example of something which notably does not end up having to do all those things, despite nominally having a sufficiently broad function that it "should" need to, is the terminal
Show threadbadtuple4d ago
@ireneista incidentally, Mitchell Hashimoto's writing on libghostty (alongside some personal research into VTTs) is what initially inspired this rabbit-hole. The amount needed for a technically functional (but not even close to good) terminal that can hold it's own as a daily driver is wild.
Show threadIrenes (many)
@badtuple ah yep! yeah there's a lot of features that have kind of accumulated
Mar 24 at 2:43amWeb