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Browsers are complex because the web is a mess not because of performance reasons. You can build a fast HTML 1.0 browser in a few lines of Java but if you want modern JavaScript + CSS + cookies + plugin suport + backwards compatibility + embedding videos + best effort rendering + ... it becomes a huge mess.


I think that was exactly OP's point.


Isn't HTML 1.0 actually a mess compared to 4.0? ;)


No, HTML 1.0 had 20 elements 13 of which are in HTML 5 so there is not much to hate. The real issue is we use a TEXT markup language to creat UI which is fundamentally broken.


Yes, this is the key point. Markup to make applications is just nuts.


I beg to differ between markup only and markup + code.

Declarative markup seems to be a whole lot harder to mess up than creating views in code. (Of course, anything is possible once you add enough smart people.)


Really? Android and Gtk is just nuts?

Of course, you can still create your ui in JS, just as you can create Gtk and Android applications without markup.




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