This is like one of those startup websites/videos that tells you absolutely nothing about what they are doing.
I didn't watch the video (atwork), and I don't even know what the name of this new thing is.
The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
121–130 of 206 posts
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#122Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#123This 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…
I see no harm in a browser dedicated for developers, best serving the web development purposes just as much as I don't see any harm with building mobile and desktop applications using IDEs and Simulators and then releasing them to the numerous platforms. I believe this separation will lead to the possible introduction of many cutting edge implementations on the browser/engines level(s), for experimentation, before a…
I could definitely see functions like setting the render resolution and rotating between landscape and portrait being useful for testing.
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#124I'm still on the fence about having separate browsers for developers. It sounds nice as a concept but when I think about it more it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. For instance, when I want to debug my website I go to the dev tools within the browser I'm viewing because I know that my users are viewing the same browser (typically). Having an entirely different developer browsers makes the debugging experienc…
This speaks to the general low quality of web specifications and/or inability of browser developers to create robust implementations of those specs.
In the vast majority of scenarios we don't think about using the same processor to experience the same thing a user does. (Certainly driver developers and other low level h/w people will occasionally run into h/w bugs but they're in a very niche field).
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know when I was a kid, I was smart enough for BASIC and Pascal but C++ just looked weird and complex and hard. HTML, CSS and Javascript were awesome and I jumped into that instead. When I was a kid, C++ was easy and I didn't start learning javascript until a few years ago. I also learned TI-BASIC in AP Calc, and Java (CS II-Honors) was presented at my school as harder than C++ (CS I). A lot of what is labeled dif…
> When I was just learning to program, I was afraid to ask questions, to talk about what I knew or thought. I suppose you're right. When I was learning, there was no one to ask questions to. Glad that's changed.
I don't think I'm right or wrong. I still have problems asking people for help.
Your point about this is poignant:
> Then you make the toolchain so long and complex that you need 5 years before you even gain the first feeling of accomplishment.
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#126I'm still on the fence about having separate browsers for developers. It sounds nice as a concept but when I think about it more it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. For instance, when I want to debug my website I go to the dev tools within the browser I'm viewing because I know that my users are viewing the same browser (typically). Having an entirely different developer browsers makes the debugging experienc…
I completely agree that we want to view what our users are seeing, but as a counterpoint, that isn't even necessarily possible in any mainstream browser. We still have to do the majority of our development in our primary browser of choice and then load up Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera, etc to see what the rest of the world sees.
I think it would be a mistake to completely remove the developer tools from the non-developer version of Firefox, but I'd also be fine using a different developer-centric browser for the majority of my development understanding that there may be small differences and edge cases that need to be tested on numerous other browsers.
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#127I'm still on the fence about having separate browsers for developers. It sounds nice as a concept but when I think about it more it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. For instance, when I want to debug my website I go to the dev tools within the browser I'm viewing because I know that my users are viewing the same browser (typically). Having an entirely different developer browsers makes the debugging experienc…
> Having an entirely different developer browsers makes the debugging experience less realistic. It puts you in a position where you don't truly experience what the user does but what you feel more comfortable experiencing.
I don't really agree with this part; it's going to be using the same rendering and JavaScript engine so I wouldn't expect the experience to be different at all it'll just have far better access to developer tools.
Having said that, Mozilla didn't exactly put much of any content into their blog post so I could end up being wrong.
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#128I would like a strict mode in js and rendering engine, which shows syntax error like a compiler instead of eating them and failing later at random places. Ffat fingers and typos take disproportionate time while development.
Beyond ES5 Strict Mode ("use strict";), Firefox has a "javascript.options.strict" about:config pref that will log extra warnings (such as accessing undefined object properties) to the JS console. These warnings are not enabled by default because they are non-standard and can report false positives.
Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#129Re: The First Browser Dedicated to Developers Is Coming
#130This is marketing at its best. Create a browser that developers like to use so they can build Mozilla compatible products for consumers. Then more the consumers will adopt this browser as their default browser.
The developer browser also includes Firefox Tools Adaptor which supports remote device debugging of mobile browsers like Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS: