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The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#101

Post by cromwellian »

turingfail wrote: post #48
cageface wrote: post #33

At Mozilla we know that developers are the cornerstone of the Web, that’s why we actively push standards and continue to build great tools to make it easier for you to create awesome Web content and apps. Like canning WebSQL for spurious reasons and forcing people to use a half-baked spec like IndexedDB instead? As much as I applaud most of what Mozilla has done to further the interests of the open web it's hard to f…

> canning WebSQL for spurious reasons The way to implement WebSQL is to copy SQLite 3.1.9. That is not exactly a baked specification, that is the kind of crap companies used to pull to make unimplementable "standards" for everyone who doesn't license their code and doing that a few times over a decade would make w3c compliant browsers pretty crappy.

So instead, invent something that's a piece of crap, and make the Web worse than what Android and iOS developers get for offline storage.

SQLite is public domain, there's no need to license it.

Sometimes worse is a better, and insisting on standards process purity in this case I think harmed developers and didn't help the Web at all. There was nothing wrong with SQLite from a licensing standpoint, and everyone could have used it, and reverse engineered a spec later.

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#102

Post by justcommenting »

kisielk wrote: post #95
justcommenting wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The announcement promises 'Soon, we’re going to bring you more, a lot more, in a package that you deserve as a builder for an independent Web.' My argument is basically that users deserve these things, too. With huge respect for the work that you and Mozilla have been doing in this and other areas, I can understand that there are practical reasons why this may make sense for Mozilla (and even developers) internally.…

What's the problem? The users can just download the same browser if they're really interested in the additional functionality.

Instead of working to ensure that my parents' computer running Windows 3.1 shipped with a C compiler by default a few decades ago, people inside Microsoft and Borland were probably thinking the same thing.

This line of thinking is basically the reason I had to wait a few more years until I could buy my own computer that could run Linux as a teenager.

For lots of people, the world is a very different place now, but just because something's trivial for people like us doesn't necessarily mean everyone else can very easily 'just download something else'.

Defaults can be tremendously powerful, especially when they enable others to build free software.

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#103

Post by jgwest »

jgwest wrote: post #99
justcommenting wrote: post #71

This seems to reinforce the mindset that the web should be experienced and built using different tools for users vs. developers, and aside from thinking that's fundamentally condescending, I don't see why new tools couldn't simply be extended from FF's 'web developer' menu into a different mode of operation or even extensions. I think we're better off in a world where kids don't have to install ScaryFox on their tabl…

No, debugging web apps is inherently different from using them. Kudos to Mozilla for this one!

And if you need a "high-quality suite of tools for debugging", then all you need to do is look for them... Preferably not in Firefox Extensions, because they are malware-prone...

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#104

Post by justcommenting »

callahad wrote: post #100
justcommenting wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The announcement promises 'Soon, we’re going to bring you more, a lot more, in a package that you deserve as a builder for an independent Web.' My argument is basically that users deserve these things, too. With huge respect for the work that you and Mozilla have been doing in this and other areas, I can understand that there are practical reasons why this may make sense for Mozilla (and even developers) internally.…

Thank you for following up. I'm just getting up to speed on what the devtools team has been working on, and it should meet with your approval when it's released. The other-ing language is unfortunate, but is hopefully tempered by Mozilla's work to ensure that everyone can be a developer. Things like Webmaker, the Web Literacy Standard, Summer Code Parties, the Mozilla Science Lab, etc. Mozilla and Mozillians are pour…

agreed - i was probably responding mostly to language and jumping the gun in commenting on a product i haven't seen yet. that's pretty unfair.

but that hypothetical kid whose parents wouldn't let him use ScaryFox that i mentioned in a previous comment..that kid was me

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#105

Post by callahad »

lmm wrote: post #72
Yoric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this version of Firefox activates a number of web features that are not activated in the release version, to let webdevs test against features that are either not 100% stable or not fully standardized yet. But other than that, it's basically Firefox.

So it's just like Chrome Canary? Not exactly "the first" then.

Canary is equivalent to https://nightly.mozilla.org/, or http://nightly.webkit.org/

This is different.

It's not revolutionary (we're not releasing Servo yet), but it is pretty fantastic. I'd be shocked if most Firefox Aurora users don't switch over to the developer browser next week. :)

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#106

Post by Yoric »

jgwest wrote: post #103
jgwest wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, debugging web apps is inherently different from using them. Kudos to Mozilla for this one!

And if you need a "high-quality suite of tools for debugging", then all you need to do is look for them... Preferably not in Firefox Extensions, because they are malware-prone...

Really? Which ones?

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#107

Post by Yoric »

lmm wrote: post #72
Yoric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this version of Firefox activates a number of web features that are not activated in the release version, to let webdevs test against features that are either not 100% stable or not fully standardized yet. But other than that, it's basically Firefox.

So it's just like Chrome Canary? Not exactly "the first" then.

Well, we have had Firefox Nightly (which is the equivalent of Canary) for, well, as long as we have had Firefox. But activating some experimental features for webdevs is new.

Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming

#108

Post by canuckistani »

bendyorke wrote: post #87
justcommenting wrote: post #71

This seems to reinforce the mindset that the web should be experienced and built using different tools for users vs. developers, and aside from thinking that's fundamentally condescending, I don't see why new tools couldn't simply be extended from FF's 'web developer' menu into a different mode of operation or even extensions. I think we're better off in a world where kids don't have to install ScaryFox on their tabl…

My perspective is this: Mozilla (to my knowledge) isn't getting rid of the developer tools in the standard Firefox. Those will still be there for people who want to get into development, and while their features will seem comparatively limited, thats actually a good thing. They're getting access to a concise set of tools that isn't overwhelming, and the same set of tools that millions of people use for development ev…

That's correct, the devtools will remain in mainline Firefox ( source: I'm the PM ). We are starting to add in guards against things lke self-xss in mainline though, and dev edition will not have these sorts of things.
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