[rollcat]

Many many factors to consider. Simplistic take: KHTML was picked up by Apple because of its clean design and codebase; there's an extra 30 years of accumulated improvements in C++; you don't write stuff in Rust 1.0 either.

Also: Andreas has worked on Webkit/Blink. He knew what he was doing when he started the project, even if it was "just for fun". Linux started under similar circumstances.

[yencabulator]

Linux started under circumstances of Linus wanting to learn 386 assembler. He got two processes writing alternating As and Bs to demonstrate 386 multitasking. Linus had to find SunOS docs etc to copy system call signatures from. It's truly an accidental success story, and while Linus is smart & capable he sure as hell did not "know what he was doing", the whole point was to learn and fiddle with it.

Starting a new browser project without a solid security architecture seems just a bad idea to me. It's such a hostile operating environment. Personal computing in the early 90s was a very different place.

[rollcat]

Torvalds had his debate with prof. Tanenbaum (a specialist in OS research), stuck with his own opinions, and achieved an extraordinary success, continuing as a technical project leader and architect for 35+ years and counting. It's circumstantial, but not accidental.