The Safari bug that never was (2022)(obyford.com)
obyford.com
The Safari bug that never was (2022)
https://obyford.com/posts/the-safari-bug-that-never-was/
93 comments
Text layout is just hard. There’s a lot of history you need to encode as rules, and you end up with a very complicated system that is hard to abstract because there are circular dependencies all over the place. This bug was because the size of the container depends on the text, whose layout depends on the container. Text just wouldn’t look “right” if we skipped it.
It’s as “human” a problem as dates and time, probably worse! Your best bet is to use libraries to avoid the whole problem, but that means delegating all layout which might not be possible.
It’s as “human” a problem as dates and time, probably worse! Your best bet is to use libraries to avoid the whole problem, but that means delegating all layout which might not be possible.
"Just use Unix time!" Some problems have a surprising amount of inherent complexity. Java has tried a few times to solve date values, and the results are sometimes unusably complicated. I don't know what the answer is... an even more sophisticated type system? A linting step in the tool chain? An academic paper? An industry publication?
Hardware improves every month, but some parts of software worked better thirty years ago.
Hardware improves every month, but some parts of software worked better thirty years ago.
I like how they were too modest to post the developer's comment in the bug:
> "Also, this is a fantastic bug report. I don't know if I've ever seen a bug report this detailed before."
Little things like that restore faith in humanity.
> "Also, this is a fantastic bug report. I don't know if I've ever seen a bug report this detailed before."
Little things like that restore faith in humanity.
People often forget that there are brilliant developers who don’t need to be 10x to produce extreme value to those around them.
Why would proper documenting and communication not be part of more effective engineering?
It's about providing 10 times the value, not churning similar quality code 10 times faster.
It's about providing 10 times the value, not churning similar quality code 10 times faster.
Agreed! The title of the post emphasizes the satisfying outcome, but the details about the journey are equally satisfying. That compliment is a reflection of that and it's good they acknowledged it.
People working on gov.uk design system are absolutely amazing.
Bragging isn't a cultural standard around the world.
Many cultures are very adverse against any kind of such boasting and cultivate modesty. UK is one of those countries where bragging is widely considered vulgar. Happens, but it's not considered or taken as the norm or polite.
I think this article actually perfectly sums English bragging: it's polite and short, hidden between describing the due diligence that went behind reporting the bug and the numbers of other bugs they have reported and helped fix in time combined with a semi patronizing (but absolutely true and sharable) link to how to report bugs well.
If you went further east to Asia, to cultures where any kind of boasting or bragging is seen very negatively, not just vulgar, you would've found even less of it.
Many cultures are very adverse against any kind of such boasting and cultivate modesty. UK is one of those countries where bragging is widely considered vulgar. Happens, but it's not considered or taken as the norm or polite.
I think this article actually perfectly sums English bragging: it's polite and short, hidden between describing the due diligence that went behind reporting the bug and the numbers of other bugs they have reported and helped fix in time combined with a semi patronizing (but absolutely true and sharable) link to how to report bugs well.
If you went further east to Asia, to cultures where any kind of boasting or bragging is seen very negatively, not just vulgar, you would've found even less of it.
I submitted a bug report to WebKit last year and was fully expecting it to sit uncommented and then closed eventually for "no activity" or any of the other outcomes that seem common with large open-source projects supported by any of the Big 5.
This was on a Wednesday. I rolled up my sleeves to start learning WebKit development myself, but they had a patch submitted, reviewed, and accepted by the next day :-)
This was on a Wednesday. I rolled up my sleeves to start learning WebKit development myself, but they had a patch submitted, reviewed, and accepted by the next day :-)
I love these kind of bug-hunting stories. The Apple engineer that fixed the bug (and remains nameless), provided an explanation, which happily surprised me. I usually read wry remarks on Twitter about the black hole that's called Radar.
As someone who’s worked in a role supporting a high ratio of people to developers in animation production, I often wonder how much of the radar black holeness is just a ratio issue.
Afaik Apple runs really small teams versus other companies. I know when I once interviewed around FAANG, the Apple teams were significantly smaller (like 5x smaller in some cases…probably also why they aren’t part of this mass tech layoffs). I used to find in my old film job that no matter how much I churned through tickets , there was just no getting out from the stigma of being unresponsive because the person on the other end of the ticket can’t see what your workload and priorities are like. That’s not to say Apple isn’t at fault for having small teams, but I think a lot of people assume the engineers themselves don’t care to fix stuff.
Though at least in my case, I could tell my users that I was working on stuff and to expect it at some time in the future. I assume Apple’s engineers are even more hamstrung by their extreme secrecy. I know the few feedback radars I’ve gotten responses from were basically “can reproduce” to “fixed in the latest OS release” without any feedback in between.
anyway all that is to say, I often see people blame the engineers (you didn’t but I see others do) whereas I think it’s a corporate culture issue that engineers are beholden to.
Afaik Apple runs really small teams versus other companies. I know when I once interviewed around FAANG, the Apple teams were significantly smaller (like 5x smaller in some cases…probably also why they aren’t part of this mass tech layoffs). I used to find in my old film job that no matter how much I churned through tickets , there was just no getting out from the stigma of being unresponsive because the person on the other end of the ticket can’t see what your workload and priorities are like. That’s not to say Apple isn’t at fault for having small teams, but I think a lot of people assume the engineers themselves don’t care to fix stuff.
Though at least in my case, I could tell my users that I was working on stuff and to expect it at some time in the future. I assume Apple’s engineers are even more hamstrung by their extreme secrecy. I know the few feedback radars I’ve gotten responses from were basically “can reproduce” to “fixed in the latest OS release” without any feedback in between.
anyway all that is to say, I often see people blame the engineers (you didn’t but I see others do) whereas I think it’s a corporate culture issue that engineers are beholden to.
> I know the few feedback radars I’ve gotten responses from were basically “can reproduce”
Wait, you get "can reproduce" responses???
I never get that, I think literally never in over 15 years, but it would be a vast improvement to my bug reporting experience.
Wait, you get "can reproduce" responses???
I never get that, I think literally never in over 15 years, but it would be a vast improvement to my bug reporting experience.
I should say it’s usually
1. Submit bug 2. Get a cannot reproduce , please provide more information 3. Submit more info as requested 4. “Okay we can reproduce. Thanks” 5. Nothing for ages 6. Okay it’s fixed
Step number 5 almost always aligns with their OS release (point and major) schedules in my experience. macOS 13.1 just came out so if I filed a minor bug now, I’d probably not hear anything till June (WWDC) or if I’m lucky, in one of the point releases that happens every couple months.
1. Submit bug 2. Get a cannot reproduce , please provide more information 3. Submit more info as requested 4. “Okay we can reproduce. Thanks” 5. Nothing for ages 6. Okay it’s fixed
Step number 5 almost always aligns with their OS release (point and major) schedules in my experience. macOS 13.1 just came out so if I filed a minor bug now, I’d probably not hear anything till June (WWDC) or if I’m lucky, in one of the point releases that happens every couple months.
> and remains nameless
WebKit is open-source, so it is actually one of the few Apple projects where the developers do not not remain nameless (the other big one being Swift).
> the black hole that's called Radar
IIRC WebKit has its own bug tracker, hence why you get better response times. Radar itself is still a terrible and demoralizing experience (from a developer point-of-view)
WebKit is open-source, so it is actually one of the few Apple projects where the developers do not not remain nameless (the other big one being Swift).
> the black hole that's called Radar
IIRC WebKit has its own bug tracker, hence why you get better response times. Radar itself is still a terrible and demoralizing experience (from a developer point-of-view)
> IIRC WebKit has its own bug tracker, hence why you get better response times. Radar itself is still a terrible and demoralizing experience (from a developer point-of-view)
The funny thing though is that Apple still sends WebKit bugs into Radar to work on them:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232939#c6
The funny thing though is that Apple still sends WebKit bugs into Radar to work on them:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232939#c6
Webkit bugs do not get transferred to radar to be worked on. Assuming the bug is actually in webkit (eg not a bug in the safari app or an underlying system framework), all the work happens in the public bug database. Code review, patch dev, etc for webkit occurs in bugzilla.
There are many reasons for linking bugzilla bugs to radar, but the big ones are scheduling, other project dependencies inside Apple, security reports (so that reporters can be mentioned in release notes, etc).
The important thing is that the b.w.o->radar cross referencing is not for development specifically.
There are many reasons for linking bugzilla bugs to radar, but the big ones are scheduling, other project dependencies inside Apple, security reports (so that reporters can be mentioned in release notes, etc).
The important thing is that the b.w.o->radar cross referencing is not for development specifically.
> all the work happens in the public bug database. Code review, patch dev, etc for webkit occurs in bugzilla.
What about discussion?
Do you claim there is no private discussion among Apple engineers about WebKit bugs that have been put "InRadar"?
I see a lot of WebKit bugs that have no discussion whatsoever and just seem to arrive ex nihilo from Radar. You wonder what the reasoning or explanation is for a certain code change, and you'll find absolutely nothing about it in the Bugzilla.
What about discussion?
Do you claim there is no private discussion among Apple engineers about WebKit bugs that have been put "InRadar"?
I see a lot of WebKit bugs that have no discussion whatsoever and just seem to arrive ex nihilo from Radar. You wonder what the reasoning or explanation is for a certain code change, and you'll find absolutely nothing about it in the Bugzilla.
> Do you claim there is no private discussion among Apple engineers about WebKit bugs that have been put "InRadar"?
Open source bugs will have private/non-public conversations (whether it's in person, or on slack, or on a seperate issue tracker) all the time. That's not abnormal or all that damning.
Open source bugs will have private/non-public conversations (whether it's in person, or on slack, or on a seperate issue tracker) all the time. That's not abnormal or all that damning.
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> What about discussion?
Is achieved by talking among each other, or simply by knowing how to fix/implement the feature (not every bug requires any discussion at all). Either in person (which would be inherently "private" as you say), or irc historically - I'm unsure whether irc is still significant as I recall free node dying off or something a few years back?
> Do you claim there is no private discussion among Apple engineers about WebKit bugs that have been put "InRadar"?
No, I'm saying your claim that "The funny thing though is that Apple still sends WebKit bugs into Radar to work on them:" is nonsense. The reason that bugs are cloned to radar is so that they can be tracked for releases. I think you have decided that any time you don't see discussion in b.w.o it means discussion there must be discussion in radar, and that's false. The reality is that most bug fix/feature implementation doesn't require discussion during development, actual recorded discussion happens during review as that systematically results in recording the exchanges.
> I see a lot of WebKit bugs that have no discussion whatsoever and just seem to arrive ex nihilo from Radar.
Again, I think you grossly overestimate the amount of recorded "discussion" that goes with a bug.
> You wonder what the reasoning or explanation is for a certain code change, and you'll find absolutely nothing about it in the Bugzilla.
For many there's not anything in radar either, because many (most?) bugs you see are created to track reviewing the change, and don't exist before the review process. The lack of explanation is typically because the engineers working on changes have the context for why a change is needed, so don't include an explanation.
Is achieved by talking among each other, or simply by knowing how to fix/implement the feature (not every bug requires any discussion at all). Either in person (which would be inherently "private" as you say), or irc historically - I'm unsure whether irc is still significant as I recall free node dying off or something a few years back?
> Do you claim there is no private discussion among Apple engineers about WebKit bugs that have been put "InRadar"?
No, I'm saying your claim that "The funny thing though is that Apple still sends WebKit bugs into Radar to work on them:" is nonsense. The reason that bugs are cloned to radar is so that they can be tracked for releases. I think you have decided that any time you don't see discussion in b.w.o it means discussion there must be discussion in radar, and that's false. The reality is that most bug fix/feature implementation doesn't require discussion during development, actual recorded discussion happens during review as that systematically results in recording the exchanges.
> I see a lot of WebKit bugs that have no discussion whatsoever and just seem to arrive ex nihilo from Radar.
Again, I think you grossly overestimate the amount of recorded "discussion" that goes with a bug.
> You wonder what the reasoning or explanation is for a certain code change, and you'll find absolutely nothing about it in the Bugzilla.
For many there's not anything in radar either, because many (most?) bugs you see are created to track reviewing the change, and don't exist before the review process. The lack of explanation is typically because the engineers working on changes have the context for why a change is needed, so don't include an explanation.
> I recall free node dying off or something a few years back?
Yeah, a kind of hostile takeover occurred, which the IRC community did not appreciate.
> Again, I think you grossly overestimate the amount of recorded "discussion" that goes with a bug.
Perhaps so. Seems a bit odd to me though. And a bit lonely :-)
> The lack of explanation is typically because the engineers working on changes have the context for why a change is needed, so don't include an explanation.
Well, I think it's worth noting that this is not very helpful to outsiders who are looking at and working with the code of an open source project.
Even in my closed source self owned projects, I like to provide useful context to my future self. ;-)
Yeah, a kind of hostile takeover occurred, which the IRC community did not appreciate.
> Again, I think you grossly overestimate the amount of recorded "discussion" that goes with a bug.
Perhaps so. Seems a bit odd to me though. And a bit lonely :-)
> The lack of explanation is typically because the engineers working on changes have the context for why a change is needed, so don't include an explanation.
Well, I think it's worth noting that this is not very helpful to outsiders who are looking at and working with the code of an open source project.
Even in my closed source self owned projects, I like to provide useful context to my future self. ;-)
> Perhaps so. Seems a bit odd to me though. And a bit lonely :-)
People communicate in IRC (or a public slack now based on another comment?), in person, or in email. So when needed communication happens, it's just generally back and forth commentary in a bug is not a particularly good or efficient way to discuss implementation of bug fixes, features, etc.
> Well, I think it's worth noting that this is not very helpful to outsiders who are looking at and working with the code of an open source project.
Because it's a bug tracker being used to track bug fixes, not a tool for communicating with arbitrary people not involved in the project? I don't mean to be glib, but for WK at least that's just not what the bug trackers are used for.
> Even in my closed source self owned projects, I like to provide useful context to my future self.
In the bug report or in the code? Generally IME when code does things that are odd the explanation of that oddness is in the code (assuming not self explanatory) not the bug tracker.
It also depends on the bug itself, bug fixes you'd normally be able to see why a change was made (if not obvious from the title/description) is the attached test cases.
People communicate in IRC (or a public slack now based on another comment?), in person, or in email. So when needed communication happens, it's just generally back and forth commentary in a bug is not a particularly good or efficient way to discuss implementation of bug fixes, features, etc.
> Well, I think it's worth noting that this is not very helpful to outsiders who are looking at and working with the code of an open source project.
Because it's a bug tracker being used to track bug fixes, not a tool for communicating with arbitrary people not involved in the project? I don't mean to be glib, but for WK at least that's just not what the bug trackers are used for.
> Even in my closed source self owned projects, I like to provide useful context to my future self.
In the bug report or in the code? Generally IME when code does things that are odd the explanation of that oddness is in the code (assuming not self explanatory) not the bug tracker.
It also depends on the bug itself, bug fixes you'd normally be able to see why a change was made (if not obvious from the title/description) is the attached test cases.
> So when needed communication happens, it's just generally back and forth commentary in a bug is not a particularly good or efficient way to discuss implementation of bug fixes, features, etc.
I disagree, because whether it's the intention or not ("it's a bug tracker being used to track bug fixes, not a tool for communicating with arbitrary people not involved in the project"), the bug report de facto becomes an important historical record for understanding the code. In the future, when someone looks back, the question that often comes to mind is "Why?" Why this (that)? Why now (then)? The motive, the historical context, is rarely something that becomes evident just looking at the code, even code with comments.
Can I change this code? Can I delete this code? How did this code ever work? You can't rely on unit tests to tell you the story behind the code. And when you come upon some "questionable" code, it's equally likely that the comments and/or tests are questionable too.
If the code was written to handle something publicly important, if debates were had, alternatives considered, choices made and rejected, that's worth knowing, in my opinion.
I disagree, because whether it's the intention or not ("it's a bug tracker being used to track bug fixes, not a tool for communicating with arbitrary people not involved in the project"), the bug report de facto becomes an important historical record for understanding the code. In the future, when someone looks back, the question that often comes to mind is "Why?" Why this (that)? Why now (then)? The motive, the historical context, is rarely something that becomes evident just looking at the code, even code with comments.
Can I change this code? Can I delete this code? How did this code ever work? You can't rely on unit tests to tell you the story behind the code. And when you come upon some "questionable" code, it's equally likely that the comments and/or tests are questionable too.
If the code was written to handle something publicly important, if debates were had, alternatives considered, choices made and rejected, that's worth knowing, in my opinion.
> The lack of explanation is typically because the engineers working on changes have the context for why a change is needed, so don't include an explanation.
Part of which is because the engineers are working on an unreleased feature that they’d like to put up “quietly”.
Part of which is because the engineers are working on an unreleased feature that they’d like to put up “quietly”.
That isn’t surprising. Even if the work is being done publicly, it still needs to be tracked and project-managed internally by the team.
> Even if the work is being done publicly, it still needs to be tracked and project-managed internally by the team.
bugs.webkit.org is literally a bug tracker.
The only relevant difference between Radar and WebKit Bugzilla is private vs. public.
bugs.webkit.org is literally a bug tracker.
The only relevant difference between Radar and WebKit Bugzilla is private vs. public.
> The only relevant difference between Radar and WebKit Bugzilla is private vs. public.
No, this is not true. Radar is not just "a bug tracker" — it is a very powerful project management tool, custom-built over several decades for the way Apple works, with integrations into other internal tools and processes.
It should be obvious why Apple wants to track work being done on Webkit using the same tool it uses to track work being done on every other project at the company.
No, this is not true. Radar is not just "a bug tracker" — it is a very powerful project management tool, custom-built over several decades for the way Apple works, with integrations into other internal tools and processes.
It should be obvious why Apple wants to track work being done on Webkit using the same tool it uses to track work being done on every other project at the company.
Last time I saw Radar, and its source code, which was admittedly over a decade ago, it was not a "project management tool" as such, although radars could of course be used in project management. It was indeed just a bug tracker, but yes, a very powerful one. At bottom it was a giant Oracle database, with several frontends.
I can't speak as to what Radar looked like a decade ago.
There’s also a difference between WebKit (the open source code) and Safari (the closed source software)
I assume internally they’re treated as one component which makes it easier to mirror bugs into radar?
I assume internally they’re treated as one component which makes it easier to mirror bugs into radar?
WebKit has a closed source component that ships alongside Safari, which is entirely closed source.
Why did you call them nameless? Their name is readily available, Myles C. Maxfield.
Having worked on two major web browsers, I can tell you that they spend a surprisingly large proportion of their time measuring text. Drawing text is only half as much of the cycles spent. We got a significant speed boost at one point by reverse engineering an undocumented fast text measuring OS API that a rival browser was using.
FTA: “And in the font we use on GOV.UK, the new line character has a bigger width than a space character – which is apparently unusual.
[…]
One of them incorrectly used the width of the new line character in its calculations, and so the box that it made was too small.”
I don’t understand that explanation. If the newline character in the font is wider than a space, why would the box end up too small if width calculations assume a newline will be rendered where the actual page will use a space?
(full bug report is here: https://github.com/alphagov/reported-bugs/issues/66, but I don’t think see it linked with a WebKit issue)
[…]
One of them incorrectly used the width of the new line character in its calculations, and so the box that it made was too small.”
I don’t understand that explanation. If the newline character in the font is wider than a space, why would the box end up too small if width calculations assume a newline will be rendered where the actual page will use a space?
(full bug report is here: https://github.com/alphagov/reported-bugs/issues/66, but I don’t think see it linked with a WebKit issue)
The way I understood it in my head (though I don’t know if the article actually says this) is that process that figured out the box size was probably ignoring the new line and just assuming it was the same width as a space.
The process that actually laid out the text was using the specified width of the new line, so it came up with a longer width and had to break the line.
The process that actually laid out the text was using the specified width of the new line, so it came up with a longer width and had to break the line.
But the thing is: as the article (correctly) says:
“In HTML, any extra whitespace between words is ignored. This means you can add extra spaces, and even new lines, between words without affecting how they are displayed in the browser”
So, “ignoring the new line and just assuming it was the same width as a space” is correct behaviour.
I now think what happened is this:
- the width of the box to render the text in was computed correctly
- the code that then laid out the text inside that box incorrectly used the width of the newline in the HTML to compute the length of the text, concluded the text was too long to fit on a line, and line-wrapped it inside the box.
That’s not consistent with the claim from the article “and so the box that it made was too small”, though.
Alternatively, the font’s line feed glyph was _less_wide_ than a space, and the width of the box was computed as too small, but then the article is incorrect in that it claims the font’s line feed glyph was _wider_ than a space.
(and for those wondering why a browser needs to compute the width of that text twice: I wouldn’t know, but browser layout engines are complex beasts)
“In HTML, any extra whitespace between words is ignored. This means you can add extra spaces, and even new lines, between words without affecting how they are displayed in the browser”
So, “ignoring the new line and just assuming it was the same width as a space” is correct behaviour.
I now think what happened is this:
- the width of the box to render the text in was computed correctly
- the code that then laid out the text inside that box incorrectly used the width of the newline in the HTML to compute the length of the text, concluded the text was too long to fit on a line, and line-wrapped it inside the box.
That’s not consistent with the claim from the article “and so the box that it made was too small”, though.
Alternatively, the font’s line feed glyph was _less_wide_ than a space, and the width of the box was computed as too small, but then the article is incorrect in that it claims the font’s line feed glyph was _wider_ than a space.
(and for those wondering why a browser needs to compute the width of that text twice: I wouldn’t know, but browser layout engines are complex beasts)
> So, “ignoring the new line and just assuming it was the same width as a space” is correct behaviour.
That's not true?
If it's a newline following whitespace then it should be ignored; the width should be calculated as zero, not the width of a space.
On the other hand, if it's not following whitespace the width should be that of the newline character, again not the width of a space.
Or am I misunderstanding you?
That's not true?
If it's a newline following whitespace then it should be ignored; the width should be calculated as zero, not the width of a space.
On the other hand, if it's not following whitespace the width should be that of the newline character, again not the width of a space.
Or am I misunderstanding you?
The article explicitly says the new line width was larger than the space, so I don’t think it’s your second guess.
Your first guess makes perfect sense though, so perhaps that’s what happened. As I said, that was how I had put it together in my mind (regardless of actual fact).
Your first guess makes perfect sense though, so perhaps that’s what happened. As I said, that was how I had put it together in my mind (regardless of actual fact).
The bounding box, correctly, was set to the width without a newline. The text itself reported a width including the newline. So the text was wider than the bounding box. I think.
The code subtracted out the width of the newline assuming it was the same width as a space (which it had used when computing the other size).
I think it’s just a phrasing issue. Should be: One of them incorrectly used the width of the new line character in its calculations, and so the box that it made was too small [for the text size computed by the other].
I agree it makes it sounds like the box sizing was wrong when it must be the other way around.
I agree it makes it sounds like the box sizing was wrong when it must be the other way around.
That GitHub issue has a link labeled upstream bug pointing to:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232939
Not sure if that helps answer your question though
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=232939
Not sure if that helps answer your question though
The answer to the question appears to be in comment 13; the width of the newline character is used at one point but then assumed to be the same as the width of a space later on:
> I think I see. There's a block at the bottom of RenderText::computePreferredLogicalWidths() which is only hit if wordLen == 0 and !isNewline (which is the case here) which measures the width of the one character at index i and adds it to currMaxWidth. In our situation, that's the leading newline character.
> Then, later, we subtract it out like this: "widths.max -= font.width(RenderBlock::constructTextRun(&space, 1, style));". This expects that the width of this initial character is equal to the width of a space.
> I think I see. There's a block at the bottom of RenderText::computePreferredLogicalWidths() which is only hit if wordLen == 0 and !isNewline (which is the case here) which measures the width of the one character at index i and adds it to currMaxWidth. In our situation, that's the leading newline character.
> Then, later, we subtract it out like this: "widths.max -= font.width(RenderBlock::constructTextRun(&space, 1, style));". This expects that the width of this initial character is equal to the width of a space.
Safari seems to have been getting more developer attention this last year. This is good but also has resulted in a number of bugs and regressions as they move fast. Same is happening on Chromium.
I likewise have been involved in a similar bizarre bug. We wrote up a very detailed report with a reduced test case but sadly it has not received much attention. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=247020
I likewise have been involved in a similar bizarre bug. We wrote up a very detailed report with a reduced test case but sadly it has not received much attention. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=247020
Good to know they are serious about fixing things. Hopefully my bug, which crashes Safari (!) with CSS only, will be fixed soon: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249575
Let's not use "(previous year)" on titles when it's hasn't even been a week since the new year started, at least January should be free of "(2022)" tags, this early in the year those are just noise.
i think these are the same team that has the post about why html number input is bad?
to think, such amazing work from government. at least in US we tend to think these are not the most highly skilled people
to think, such amazing work from government. at least in US we tend to think these are not the most highly skilled people
The US attitude to government is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't give a chance to succeed to those you expect to fail.
One thing to note about GDS is that they pay comparably to many other senior dev jobs in London (and especially the rest of the UK outside of London).
In the US the equivalent maxes out at barely entry level salaries for private industry.
In the US the equivalent maxes out at barely entry level salaries for private industry.
It looks less if you compare salary to salary, but factoring in the civil service pension means GDS staffers probably get paid more
After reading "could see the strange things [...] happening in the header" I was surprised to read about font widths.
So nice to see this and makes me wish we had an open bug tracker with responsive developers for MacOS.
I use edge preview and firefox nightly on my dev machine as daily browser. It is sure the way to make browser bug not ends up being in you bug queue. A fix in browser itself is definitely better than a workaround in your app. Given workaround in web app is almost permanent (you just have no way to stop people from using an old browser)
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From the fix: https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=448463&action=pret...
> Reviewed by NOBODY (OOPS!).
If I was reviewing the code, I would have asked why Myles changed WidthIterator.cpp's call to charactersTreatedAsSpace.constructAndAppend from a separate parameter on each line to everything inline.
This change made the diff of this change harder to read, and will make the diff of any future parameter change harder to read also.
I also would have created an intermediary variable or a helper method for `character == tabCharacter ? width : font.spaceWidth()` - it's not clear at all here why this check needs to be there (without looking at the ChangeLog, which I shouldn't have to do to understand code), or why the old behaviour that used `width` instead of `font.spaceWidth()` ONLY applies to tabCharacter (So it should be encapsulate inside a method with a clear comment with the info from the ChangeLog)
Lastly, this diff doesn't seem to match the blog description:
> The font also has data about the newline character, including its width. This doesn’t really make sense – new lines don’t (or at least shouldn’t) take up any space, but the font doesn’t treat it differently to any other character. The creator of the font still has to include a width for the new line character in the font’s data. And in the font we use on GOV.UK, the new line character has a bigger width than a space character – which is apparently unusual.
This makes it sound like the FONT is wrong and the font width shouldn't be used for width calculation. Yet the change in the code introduces using the font's space width explicitly.
Ultimately the ChangeLog doesn't match the code. I trust the blog writer, the code author, and the description of the bug in the ChangeLog. What needed improvement here then is the code to imperatively match what is described in English.
> Reviewed by NOBODY (OOPS!).
If I was reviewing the code, I would have asked why Myles changed WidthIterator.cpp's call to charactersTreatedAsSpace.constructAndAppend from a separate parameter on each line to everything inline.
This change made the diff of this change harder to read, and will make the diff of any future parameter change harder to read also.
I also would have created an intermediary variable or a helper method for `character == tabCharacter ? width : font.spaceWidth()` - it's not clear at all here why this check needs to be there (without looking at the ChangeLog, which I shouldn't have to do to understand code), or why the old behaviour that used `width` instead of `font.spaceWidth()` ONLY applies to tabCharacter (So it should be encapsulate inside a method with a clear comment with the info from the ChangeLog)
Lastly, this diff doesn't seem to match the blog description:
> The font also has data about the newline character, including its width. This doesn’t really make sense – new lines don’t (or at least shouldn’t) take up any space, but the font doesn’t treat it differently to any other character. The creator of the font still has to include a width for the new line character in the font’s data. And in the font we use on GOV.UK, the new line character has a bigger width than a space character – which is apparently unusual.
This makes it sound like the FONT is wrong and the font width shouldn't be used for width calculation. Yet the change in the code introduces using the font's space width explicitly.
Ultimately the ChangeLog doesn't match the code. I trust the blog writer, the code author, and the description of the bug in the ChangeLog. What needed improvement here then is the code to imperatively match what is described in English.
> it's not clear at all here why this check needs to be there (without looking at the ChangeLog, which I shouldn't have to do to understand code)
Teams that standardise on in-depth change messages usually have a culture to look towards commit messages/changelogs to understand more motivation about why code is a particularly way.
> This makes it sound like the FONT is wrong and the font width shouldn't be used for width calculation. Yet the change in the code introduces using the font's space width explicitly.
I don't know C++, and I'm not familiar with the codebase, but my read of the code change says that "if it's a 'treat-it-like-a-space-character" that isn't a tab, then size the character like a space character". This is inline with the english description
Teams that standardise on in-depth change messages usually have a culture to look towards commit messages/changelogs to understand more motivation about why code is a particularly way.
> This makes it sound like the FONT is wrong and the font width shouldn't be used for width calculation. Yet the change in the code introduces using the font's space width explicitly.
I don't know C++, and I'm not familiar with the codebase, but my read of the code change says that "if it's a 'treat-it-like-a-space-character" that isn't a tab, then size the character like a space character". This is inline with the english description
That is an accurate description of this code.
> The font also has data about the newline character, including its width. This doesn’t really make sense [emphasis mine]
The font doesn’t have one width, it has a width for each character. The data for the newline character is bogus. All of these match.
The font doesn’t have one width, it has a width for each character. The data for the newline character is bogus. All of these match.
Key part:
> And in the font we use on GOV.UK, the new line character has a bigger width than a space character – which is apparently unusual.
> And in the font we use on GOV.UK, the new line character has a bigger width than a space character – which is apparently unusual.
Underfull \hbox (badness 10000)intellix(6)
It isn't just Apple of course. I encountered almost the exact same bugs working on Nautilus at Eazel and various projects at Be. And in PowerPlant, and the Think Class Library and MacApp and... the list goes on.
My current music notation project pushed me to try and make multiple font support and layout as robust as possible, but I keep getting burnt! Text layout and metrics is just a difficult area.