On Nov 14, 2012, at 3:19 PM, Chris Evans <cev...@chromium.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:14 PM, Ryosuke Niwa <rn...@webkit.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Eric Seidel <e...@webkit.org> wrote:
> RenderArena was a perf optimization for the rendering tree, which
> hyatt imported from Mozilla 10 years ago:
> http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/2635
> 
> The prevailing lore has long been that RenderArena is no longer
> useful, ugly, and should be killed!
> http://www.mail-archive.com/webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org/msg12681.html
> 
> The (unfortunate?) reality is that we've failed to do so, despite
> trying several times.
> http://www.mail-archive.com/webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org/msg12682.html
> 
> I don't think we have failed. The messages posted on the thread don't 
> indicate anyone has tried to delete the render arena recently. I support any 
> attempts to remove it.
> 
> A first step might be to make it a platform define. For the Chromium platform 
> we'd leave the define "on" -- there are some nice security properties we get 
> from having the RenderObjects in their own spot. I'm happy to go in to more 
> details if you want, but it's similar (although not identical) to the blog 
> post linked by Brendan regarding Firefox.
> 
> Not all WebKit consumers need weight things the same way as the Chromium port 
> of course, but at least for us, the security win outweighs any quirks of 
> RenderArena.

Adding ifdefs around fundamental behavior like this to make it port-specific 
seems like a bad idea. Splintering core architecture makes things harder 
because it leads us to not really be working on the same project. Changes get 
made with one set of assumptions that might be invalid under another. Things 
have to be recoded twice. That is why I would prefer we come to consensus on 
core architectural questions like this instead of taking the "let's just add an 
ifdef" road.

I don't think anyone is calling for imminent removal of RenderArena, so going 
the ifdef road seems particularly premature in this case.

Let's instead talk about costs and benefits, possible ways to achieve those, 
and what we can agree together is a sane technical direction for the project as 
a whole.

Regards,
Maciej

_______________________________________________
webkit-dev mailing list
webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org
http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo/webkit-dev

Reply via email to