Intro Chapter

The Browsers and the Web chapter is published! It’s about why we wrote this book in the first place (trust us, it’s not the money we make publishing a book for free online). As you will see, we're quite passionate about web browsers, and I hope some of it rubs off on you all.

I was the main author of this chapter, and spent quite a long time writing different versions of it. As they say, there is nothing like trying to explain a topic well to force you to actually understand it!

In this case, it’s not understanding the what or how of browsers, it’s the why—why should we care about this subject? Since we’re only human, our motivations involve past experiences and not just abstract reasoning; in fact past experience and stories we hear are almost always most of the motivation. So you’ll see some of my personal history with browsers in there as well.

After this chapter, the next one we’ll publish is Chapter 5, about the Layout algorithm. Look for it to be published soon.

If you like the chapter and the book, please share with your friends! We have a Twitter account or the blog. And thanks as always for reading!™