I still remember watching the Keynote and expecting Gecko and then they had KHTML. I'd played around with Konqueror before, on various Linux distributions, and wasn't overwhelmed by its standards support (or quirks mode support, after all this was 2003). But Safari really enhanced it, and was so damn fast.
Wow, the original submission which linked to this article (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5041354" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5041354</a>, <a href="http://donmelton.com/2013/01/10/safari-is-released-to-the-world/" rel="nofollow">http://donmelton.com/2013/01/10/safari-is-released-to-the-wo...</a>) is #1 and this submission is #4
Here's what the safari webpage looked like at the time if anyone is interested.<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030108173656/http://www.apple.com/safari/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20030108173656/http://www.apple.c...</a>
"Also, we'll be sending you another email soon which details our changes and additions to KHTML and KJS. I hope the detailed list in that email will help you understand what we've done a little better."<p>Interesting, anyone have a handle on this list?
I am surprised at how heavily the number of lines of code factored into the decision to choose KHTML. It makes sense that a smaller codebase is much easier to jump into, and usually means cleaner architecture, but I didn't expect to see it addressed as such an important factor.