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Leaving Mozilla

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Leaving Mozilla

#11

Post by geofft »

gansai wrote: post #5

he just committed 7 hours ago. https://github.com/mozilla/rr/commit/ef7691ac8a25ec9767ba744...

Yes, per the blog post he plans to spend more time working on rr than he thinks it's reasonable for Mozilla to have to support:

And now there's rr. People think it's amazing, and it is, but we're only scratching the surface of what could be done. I'm bursting with ideas, and realizing them will require a lot of resources, resources that Mozilla cannot and should not provide --- we probably need to capture some of the value of this technology via a for-profit company. We can change the way people debug software, and in its own way that may be as important as my Web platform work, and it's work I desperately want to do.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#13

Post by kibwen »

disordinary wrote: post #12

Wonder if that's the end of Mozilla's only southern hemisphere office in Auckland.

I know of at least one other NZ Mozillian (Nick Cameron, on the Rust project) but I'm not sure if he works remotely or at an office.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#14

Post by cpeterso »

neves wrote: post #4

I've never heard about rr http://rr-project.org/ ), his tool to record program execution and debug it afterwards. The alleged 1.2x slowdown in execution is negligible. The ability to reverse in time is almost a nirvana. I'm sad I didn't have it when I used to program C++. Hope he succeeds in his new endeavor. We'd all win big. Does anyone knows of similar tools for Python and in-browser Javascript?

Mozilla is prototyping a feature called "WebReplay" to support reverse-debugging of JavaScript and DOM mutation:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/We...

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1207696

It looks like Microsoft is implementing a similar time-travel feature in Chakra:

https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/commits/TimeTravelDe...

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#15

Post by joshmoz »

I worked with Robert at Mozilla for many years. He might be the most talented software engineer I've ever met, and he's a strong candidate for nicest person as well. An absolute pleasure to work with. Mozilla will miss him dearly but some other project (apparently rr) just got really lucky.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#17

Post by StevePerkins »

neves wrote: post #4

I've never heard about rr http://rr-project.org/ ), his tool to record program execution and debug it afterwards. The alleged 1.2x slowdown in execution is negligible. The ability to reverse in time is almost a nirvana. I'm sad I didn't have it when I used to program C++. Hope he succeeds in his new endeavor. We'd all win big. Does anyone knows of similar tools for Python and in-browser Javascript?

If I'm understanding this correctly, then Java has had it for ages now via the "Chronon" debugger. It's the only reason why I pay for an IntelliJ Ultimate Edition license, since it comes bundled.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#18

Post by dingo_bat »

xigency wrote: post #10
neves wrote: post #4

I've never heard about rr http://rr-project.org/ ), his tool to record program execution and debug it afterwards. The alleged 1.2x slowdown in execution is negligible. The ability to reverse in time is almost a nirvana. I'm sad I didn't have it when I used to program C++. Hope he succeeds in his new endeavor. We'd all win big. Does anyone knows of similar tools for Python and in-browser Javascript?

Sounds very similar Green Hills Software's TimeMachine for embedded applications.

TimeMachine needs a specialized hardware probe connected via JTAG, if I'm not mistaken. The probe is powerful enough to record everything (registers, operations, etc) in its memory without affecting the embedded device. Then you can replay the info however you want, in as much detail as you like.

The feature here is more like software emulation, and it will really allow you to take the instruction pointer in reverse direction. Unlike TimeMachine which records in real time and let's you browse the recorded data as you wish, but after execution has occurred.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#19

Post by idibidiart »

"Christian" ... Since when has it become fashionable to define oneself by religion? I mean especially in professional circles like software development. I don't expect to see "Jew" or "Moozlim" (sic) or "Amoral Atheist" used to define people. Lots of respect for his work but I it does turn me off because of what it might imply As far as personal biases.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#20

Post by dtf »

idibidiart wrote: post #19

"Christian" ... Since when has it become fashionable to define oneself by religion? I mean especially in professional circles like software development. I don't expect to see "Jew" or "Moozlim" (sic) or "Amoral Atheist" used to define people. Lots of respect for his work but I it does turn me off because of what it might imply As far as personal biases.

It's a personal blog, and that's a bio. A short list of interests, things that might turn up in the blog.
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