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Firefox 8.0 is Released

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Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#21

Post by richbradshaw »

Karunamon wrote: post #17
notatoad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here we go again with the version number complaints. get over it. it doesn't make any difference to you what number they want to call it.

Considering the whole reason they're doing this crap is to make it look like they're keeping up to date with Chrome, yeah, it kinda does make a difference. Methinks they don't understand the concept of "Major release.minor release"

That's not why they are doing it. It's because it's better for everyone if things like browsers are essentially versionless, and everyone is on the newest version. Immediate automatic updates mean that users are always able to access the newest features.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#23

Post by richbradshaw »

Karunamon wrote: post #19
eCa wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of understand their reasoning. It's easier to get people interested in a "full" release, than some 3.0.21 version every three mongths. It also was more wrong to stay on 3.6.* for over two years. A middle road might be to start a year with a full release and then do point-releases doing that year, so in 2013 we would have, for instance: 13, 13.0.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.2.1, 13.3.

This is a valid, on topic, cogent post. Why is it getting downvoted?

Because version numbers are irrelevant, what's important is keeping people on the newest version. "Solving" the problem of large version numbers is like solving the problem 1/0.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#24

Post by ianb »

eCa wrote: post #7
hozzer wrote: post #2

Dear Mozilla. Why do you keep doing all these full version releases? Seriously it's just annoying. Just because IE is on version 10. Doesn't mean you have to be. Why are you doing this.... You've gone from 3-8 in a year. That's not right.

I sort of understand their reasoning. It's easier to get people interested in a "full" release, than some 3.0.21 version every three mongths. It also was more wrong to stay on 3.6.* for over two years. A middle road might be to start a year with a full release and then do point-releases doing that year, so in 2013 we would have, for instance: 13, 13.0.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.2.1, 13.3.

Mozilla is dropping the idea that some features are point releases and others are major version numbers. As a web browser there's always only been one web, so if a feature is ready then it's ready and it doesn't matter. Internally there's an actual product that other people might interact with -- and Firefox more than other browsers at that, as the traditional way to extend Firefox is to monkeypatch your changes in. But it was never quite so clear what a point release was there either, and it was getting in the way of advancing the core product.

I think simple dated releases would be an improvement (e.g., Firefox 2011.1, 2011.2, etc., or tag them based on month, this one being 2011.10, or 2011v2 or whatever.) But that's basically just a PR move. There's no longer anything really like a point release except in the case of regressions that demand an immediate fix (as happened with Firefox 7).

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#25

Post by dman »

padenot wrote: post #22
dman wrote: post #20

Folks at mozilla - keep up the good work. Could you create some videos and tutorials about extension development?

Tutorials (and learning material in general) can be found on https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions . This page seem to cover both API (XUL & Jetpack).

I am aware of the page and have written an Extension in the past. I am unclear about the following things a) Is Jetpack the way to go going forward? How much of the XPCom api is available through Jetpack? b) Is there an IDE I can setup that will allow me to get autocompletion for extension development? c) Is there an API browser for XPCom objects listing the objects, the methods available on them and the minimum version of Firefox that supports the particular api? Having a searchable index would be even better. d) When I was working on a Firefox extension I often got the feeling that I was doing something suboptimal because the development process seemed pretty broken. I was building extensions and had to restart the browser for them to take effect, getting a debugger going was more work than it should be, I wondered why isnt the Firefox ui itself written using HTML and css. I am hoping that more tutorials and workflow related posts will address many of my concerns.

Knowing the workflow of folks at mozilla will be a huge help to people like me who are working on writing extensions because the road to writing a meaningful extension is not as straightforward as it could be.

In the end I dont want the above points to act as a downer in a software release post and would like to congratulate folks at Mozilla about the great work that they do.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#26

Post by notatoad »

Karunamon wrote: post #17
notatoad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here we go again with the version number complaints. get over it. it doesn't make any difference to you what number they want to call it.

Considering the whole reason they're doing this crap is to make it look like they're keeping up to date with Chrome, yeah, it kinda does make a difference. Methinks they don't understand the concept of "Major release.minor release"

even if you were correct, in what way does the version number affect you?

and no, "i like to complain on the internet" is not a valid way in which it affects you.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#27

Post by eCa »

richbradshaw wrote: post #23
Karunamon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a valid, on topic, cogent post. Why is it getting downvoted?

Because version numbers are irrelevant, what's important is keeping people on the newest version. "Solving" the problem of large version numbers is like solving the problem 1/0.

At work we have a web application purchased about 18 months ago that officially don't support Firefox above 3.6. There were rendering differences between 3.6 and 4 that were serious enough to enforce that restriction for certain users. Apparently, it has begun working as expected again in FF7 (might have worked in FF6, not sure).

The application also uses jQuery 1.2.6 (released May '08) - I guess I'll be the one to QA the migration to the present day.

Hence I am not yet a believer in "latest version is the greatest version", in all cases. In principle, yes, but there are exceptions that makes version numbers necessary.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#28

Post by sirn »

evanw wrote: post #14
joenathan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use this extension to "make" your extensions compatible https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat...

This is great, thanks for posting it. I manage my passwords with 1Password, and while they're good about pushing updates, I've never seen their Firefox extension marked as compatible when a new version of Firefox is released.

1Password 3.8.7 seems to be compatible with Firefox 8 though. They're getting a lot better at keeping up with Firefox version lately (ever since they introduced Aurora and "maybe" Nightly support)

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#29

Post by technomancy »

sp332 wrote: post #3
hozzer wrote: post #2

Dear Mozilla. Why do you keep doing all these full version releases? Seriously it's just annoying. Just because IE is on version 10. Doesn't mean you have to be. Why are you doing this.... You've gone from 3-8 in a year. That's not right.

"Full" version releases? There will be a new release every six weeks. Whatever features are ready to be shipped at that time will be released. There was a discussion about removing the version number from the "About" box but it was left in for debugging purposes. That's all the version number is for now. Since there are no "long-term support" versions, just make sure you're up-to-date and don't give the version numbe…

> There will be a new release every six weeks.

The corrollary to this being that releases are no longer news.

Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released

#30

Post by mitchty »

Karunamon wrote: post #17
notatoad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here we go again with the version number complaints. get over it. it doesn't make any difference to you what number they want to call it.

Considering the whole reason they're doing this crap is to make it look like they're keeping up to date with Chrome, yeah, it kinda does make a difference. Methinks they don't understand the concept of "Major release.minor release"

The reason they are doing this is to get updates out to users faster not slower.

Look at the memory changes from 4->8, they're putting in updates little by little. The train station model of development fits web browsers much better than prolonged giant version leaps that change almost everything.

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