Twenty five years ago today I started the #Safari and #WebKit projects at #Apple Computer.
Which means Safari is now old enough to rent itself a car. But let's not speculate about my age.
I'm still sad I can't use Safari on my Windows PC. Alas, I lost the battle to keep it there. But at least WebKit's DNA seeded or influenced most browsers we use today.
And I'm proud of that impact. Along with the wonderful team I built who made it all happen. Here's to another 25, friends.
Cheers. 🥂😊💖
@lisamelton I was a Safari for Windows user! Until I couldn't be, of course.
(My main machine was a Mac, but we had a couple of windows boxen for specific tasks, you know how it was.)
@lisamelton ...and from the day it was released I have not stopped using it. There simply is no better browser for me and the way I use my system(s).
Thank you, Lisa!
You are much loved and appreciated for this gift to us all (and many other things)! ❤️
@metaning No, I haven't commented on Orion publicly. And I don't intend to. They don't need a distraction from me.
I don't meddle with Web browsers anymore. I'm a game developer now.
@lisamelton no one can ever take that accomplishment away from you.
I sometimes wonder if being able to complete that feat subconsciously gave you the extra boost of courage you needed for the hard work of transition. I like to think so. 
@kimlockhartga Thank you! 💖 And you're correct, even our Fascist government can't take that away from me and my team. ✊️
If that effort and its success gave me courage, I sure wish I had transitioned sooner. Instead, I waited over 10 years after retirement to begin my journey. 🤦♀️
One thing it *did* was harden my resolve and focus when I finally did transition. And I'm forever thankful for that. 🥹🏳️⚧️
@eliasp I've spoken and written about this numerous times. And the complete answer is too long for a toot.
The TL;DR is that Mozilla code (at the time) was bloated and slow. Licensing Microsoft Internet Explorer wasn't politically viable. Licensing other browsers wasn't feasible or the technology sucked for various reasons, just like Explorer.
It was truly a choice between basing our effort on KHTML and KJS or writing a browser from scratch. And I knew better than to attempt the latter.
@TheEddieShow Guilty as charged! 🤓
@eliasp Also, the KHTML and KJS code did not suck. It was rather incomplete and raw, but it was well-written and something I knew could be a project my browser-inexperienced team could learn on.
It wasn't until I lured David Hyatt away from Mozilla, after he started Firefox, that we really began to change KHTML and KJS.
We even have a couple of examples. The clean room browser engines that have been popping up like Arc and Servo have been going for years and years and aren't fully compliant engines yet. Standards compat is hard to catch up to esp since they're moving forward at the same time.
@bigolewannabe Yes, but the people who hired me at Apple wanted a Web browser and Web library in one year.
I knew that was impossible, but I figured they wouldn't fire me if I took 18 months. Which is exactly how long it did take before we unveiled the public Beta in January of 2003.
Only a fool would write everything from scratch with pressure like that. And I was no fool.
That's not to disparage the work by the Arc and Servo teams, but they didn't have the constraints that I did.
@eliasp Thanks. Fixed.
@mkoek Indeed. But some nerds got wind of me hiring David Hyatt before our WWDC unveiling and thought Safari would be based on Firefox.
So, when Steve flashed a 20-foot-high slide with the words, "KHTML and KJS" on the stage, someone in the audience a dozen rows behind be shouted, "What the fuck?!?"
It. Was. Epic. 🤣
Googolplex let us know that David Hyatt has been hired by Apple. According to Googolplex: David Hyatt has been hired by Apple. David is the creator of Chimera and many parts of Mozilla. He was an employee at Netscape/AOL until Apple offered him a job. To read more about this read his weblogs...
@mkoek Oh yeah, that was one of many times that "rumor" was repeated.
TBH, I didn't think we could keep the truth quiet.
That exactly what I meant and yes. I'm not disparaging those teams either. Browsers engines are HARD. Doing them right takes a long time. Doing them well takes even longer. The edge cases and have edge cases.
@bigolewannabe LOL! Indeed. 🤣
I used to quote Ernie Hudson's line as Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters when detailing some of the egregious HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Web server behavior I've encountered from working on Netscape Navigator in the 90s and then Safari:
"I've seen shit that'll turn you white."
And, yeah, it's just that scary.
@bigolewannabe In a prior life, I was tasked with filling out CSS support for a mobile browser. I got about 95% of the way through and then had to go tell my boss that I’d have to rewrite his layout engine if he wants the last 5%.
@lisamelton Now if we can just re-instil the notion of any changes must make the app faster…
Thanks again, for all the amazing work. :-)
@lisamelton thanks for your hard work.
Happy anniversary
Congrats.
I had some gripes with Safari in the '10s. It always seemed to blocking powerful modern progressive web apps somewhere every time you tried. Very limited localstorage implementation, difficult manifest handling over online states, limited SVG support, very, very, very late support of webRTC.
I always had the nagging suspicion this was by design to keep people paying the app store tax.
@CoralineAda You are very welcome and I'm so glad I could make a difference! 🤗🥰💖
And, yes, I was both renowned and cursed for my zero regression policy regarding performance. 😊
@flyingpenguin There's a definite need for everyone that values privacy and safety to move away from dependence on U.S. technology.
I think Vivaldi is a fine choice, but I'm personally moving away from Chromium-based browsers because of Google's decision to finally go through with hobbling ad blockers like the uBlock Origin extension.
Right now, my default browser on Windows and Linux is Firefox.
@lisamelton Appreciate your take! I totally am with you on the move from Google, yet they're propping up Firefox too, so I'm eagerly watching @Vivaldi to see if they can get any leverage while dependent (like Firefox, I suppose). @jon has me impressed so far. I'm also sensing how critical infrastructure budget and commitment changes the calculus. My quick back of napkin estimate is just 50 million/Eur per year, but you're the expert and know far better, so that is why I was curious.
https://www.flyingpenguin.com/papers-please-who-does-your-browser-engine-actually-belong-to/
@flyingpenguin Oh yeah,
@jon is a good guy and someone you can trust.
It's just that I, personally, need a complete ad blocker solution with the dumpster fire that the Web has become. And I can't do that with Chromium.
As for Firefox sucking on the Google teat, that is very true. But the first thing I do whenever II install Firefox is change the search engine to noai.duckduckgo.com.
I really do want Vivaldi to succeed though!
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