Programming

That same page lists cross-platform CLI and server as intended use cases.

The text you quote literally appears under the heading “Apple Platforms”. Gee, why don’t they mention anybody else in the Apple section?

Immediately below that, there is a cross-platform section where they say “SwiftArgumentParser and Swift's growing package ecosystem make developing cross-platform command-line tools a breeze.”

So, at worst, it sounds like the main Swift project may leave you to heft some of the GUI load yourself. Except 99% of what Ladybird does is under the hood processing that creates bitmaps for display. There is hardly any GUI really. Plus, Swift offers C++ interop.

Ladybird stems from SerenityOS where they write everything themselves. They have their own networking, GUI libraries, and crypto. Since splitting, they have adopted font rendering and media libraries from other projects ( largely available as C code I believe ).

Swift is cross-platform in all the ways the Ladybird gang needs it to be. It uses LLVM ( very cross-platform ) and the Swift compiler is meant to be cross-platform. All that will evolve and improve independent of Ladybird itself. The Ladybird team does not need many libraries from the Swift ecosystem. What they will need is pretty basic and fundamental.

Think back to Rust and Mozilla. When Mozilla rewrote the CSS parser in Rust, how much GUI rework was required? None? The CSS parser fell into the space defined by “command-line tools”.

Swift already works on Android and Windows. The support for Windows is improving and on the way to being official instead of questionable. The Browser Company is already building their app on Windows with Swift.

Swift’s governance has had some bumps in the past but is improving. Apple does have a vested interest in Swift adoption outside of their platforms. The more popular it is in general, the better the community and ecosystem get.

Your comment convinced me to finally take a look at his profile and see what the fuss is about.

I didn't see anything that'd make me scream fascism, either.

But there's definitely stuff that's off. Things that, in isolation, would be one thing, but when you analyze them all together, it wouldn't be weird to say there's a pattern. A picture starts to form, and it's one that I've sadly seen many times before.

So I went back and grabbed a few tweets:

• Andreas' take on... political leanings of contributors?
  • Spoiler: he thinks the left doesn't contribute, apparently, and I have no idea how he measured lurkers.
• Andreas is, according to himself, something like a centrist?
  • What does he consider a "purity test" from either side?
• See this measurement of his political leanings. Rest assured, he shared it in jest.
  • Did you know the internet makes fun of these tests because it only takes a few progressive choices to throw you so far left, you'd think only through decidedly unwholesome picks it'd be possible to hit the right side?
• Andreas believes Twitter is full of positive energy.
  • I thought this was funny, because everyone I know—especially Twitter users—claim it's become a far-right infested cesspit.
• Andreas' neutral take and isolated opinion on pronouns in the office
  • The most liked reply: "[...] a red flag indicating that it is a woke workplace. [...]" Many such followers. This is his bubble. Very positive.
• Andreas' reaction to someone who didn't like what they saw in a GH issue.
  • Multiple times now, when this issue was mentioned, I've seen people bring up how old it is. The age is irrelevant if he clearly still thinks the same. I stand by Lea's arguments here, and seeing him double down and fail to understand the problem is worrying.

I barely had to scroll to find these, they're all recent. There's much more.

Individually, you could dismiss everything. It's just humor. He's neutral. Objective. Wholesome. But then, why does he keep hitting the same keys? You'd assume a wholesome centrist would have a little more variety in their stand-up routine.

You know what he reminds me of, after reading so many of his tweets?

People who dress up in a veneer of positivity, but you ask them what they think is negative, and they'll say things like raising awareness of LGBT issues. Not in those words, of course, because that's not positive. When they talk about it, they'll put on this show about how they don't take sides, and how they're simply worried about the technical discussion, the actually important stuff, you know? They simply don't like unhelpful noise, things like trying to foster an inclusive community.

It's easy to seem like a positive figure when you never properly acknowledge any criticism. Position yourself as a factual, neutral voice of objectivity, even when that's literally impossible. Paint those who disagree as non-contributing, unproductive, negative noise-makers. Say you agree with people on topics they care about, but then turn around and tell them they're all doing it wrong. Cover it all up in emoji and a "Let's do it together!" attitude, but reject anyone who reaches out with the wrong greeting.

And there you have it, Andreas reads like a man who's either lying to himself or to others, and I don't know which is worse.

I went into this thinking, "I have to avoid baselessly criticizing people. There's surely nuance to this man's real beliefs, people on the internet are too quick to attack without evidence." Which is why I'm honestly surprised to say that I came out with a mildly worse opinion of Andreas than when I started. What the hell.

I sincerely hope he can reflect on his behavior and grow out of this strange mindset. Andreas seems to be a great software developer and Ladybird can be an enormous boon for the web, so it hurts to see him acting this way.

Again, I genuinely don't think he's on Twitter because he's a "weird fascist tech bro" who likes a fascist platform (what is even meant by weird?). I find it more probable that he's comfortable there, realizes that it's not going anywhere, that it remains the most popular platform, and therefore doesn't think Mastodon is worth the effort.

Why he's so comfortable there and doesn't like Mastodon is worth thinking about, though.