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Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#161
post #121
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need AI to check this info. In the same way I don't need a car if I have a horse :) I could have spent much more time compiling the same information myself. You're free to keep using horses though.

You don't need a car to go to your neighbor. But it's actually worse than that: while both the car and the horse will correctly move you from A to B, you can't cite an LLM output as a source and can't use it to check something. You can use it as a source of inspiration at best. Here your LLM output is wrong. Someone from Germany wrote they most commonly use dots, in France we use slashes and I think countries around…

Roulette? It's often correct enough, if you know how to ask, so more like a superhuman than a roulette.

If ChatGPT behaves like a roulette to you I'll attribute that to operator error.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#162
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better the opposite - date by default and on hover human readable. People would more likely want to copy the actual date than the human readable delta.

Agree to disagree :) The "human readable" is better at a glance, and timestamps are better when I care about the specifics. > People would more likely want to copy the actual date than the human readable delta. I agree that this is true when copying, but text is primarily for reading, not copying.

> I get dozens of mails per day, having just “yesterday” for 50 messages in a row is useless.

How is this "better at a glance"?!

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closing is one thing—at least you can still use the issue as a communal gathering point to make slow progress. The casual locking on the other hand is mystifying. And so often there’s the added gaslighting of a project that provides some rationale for closing but then inexplicably locks too as if that’s the same.

Closing is great - it’s an honest assessment that “we’re not going to work on it.” It still turns up in search and you can comment on it (some even reopen automatically if you do). Locking automatically is just the worst - we don’t care, we won’t care, and you’ll never get us to care.

I like these kinds of statements, they let you know right off the bat that your time is better spent elsewhere. People who see this as normal will screw you over sooner or later in other ways, e.g. by changing licenses or needless rewriting over and over and over again. At least that's been my experience.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#164
post #161
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a car to go to your neighbor. But it's actually worse than that: while both the car and the horse will correctly move you from A to B, you can't cite an LLM output as a source and can't use it to check something. You can use it as a source of inspiration at best. Here your LLM output is wrong. Someone from Germany wrote they most commonly use dots, in France we use slashes and I think countries around…

Roulette? It's often correct enough, if you know how to ask, so more like a superhuman than a roulette. If ChatGPT behaves like a roulette to you I'll attribute that to operator error.

When evidence is needed, "often correct enough" is not sufficient. You need reliable and correct for sure.

I assume you understand how LLMs work? Probabilistic word generation? That can't possibly be used as a source. It literally works by making up things that look probable. It can be used to find a source, but you still need a source.

The LLM might be correct often enough, but you'll only know the LLM is correct in the case at hand by checking at a source…

> If ChatGPT behaves like a roulette to you I'll attribute that to operator error.

I never used it. I know LLMs can be impressive and useful, but sourcing is not among the use cases. The operator should be operating the right tool for the job in the first place.

Shit I say is hopefully correct often enough, but I still can't use myself as a source.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think XDG base dir will ever be fully and universally adopted. It's been years (21 years to be exact). If it wasn't for Arch Linux getting hostile to programs that don't follow (like locking permissions of the root user directory), it probably wouldn't have grown as much as it has recently to what it is now because, honestly, the spec is not actively solving real problems people have. Most of the adoption is…

I also think app data in general is a mess. I hate the concept that any app I run can just access any other apps' data just because they share uid. Honestly at this point I just want a clean $HOME.

App sandboxing is indeed the way of the future, and being worked on by e.g. flatpak.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#166

Hoping they do XDG next. Also been waiting for 20 years [1] [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259356

I don't think XDG base dir will ever be fully and universally adopted. It's been years (21 years to be exact). If it wasn't for Arch Linux getting hostile to programs that don't follow (like locking permissions of the root user directory), it probably wouldn't have grown as much as it has recently to what it is now because, honestly, the spec is not actively solving real problems people have. Most of the adoption is…

A few points:

- Arch Linux isn't some fringe operating system full of zealots, it's one of the most popular Linux distribution (it was the most commonly used Linux distribution in the Steam hardware survey in April 2024, beating out Ubuntu). I think many people like it precisely because it takes an opinionated stance on issues such as these.

- You characterize people who ask for these features (for example in bug tracker) as "bullying" maintainers - the fact that such requests are common should show you how widespread support is for these ideas. It seems odd to procure feedback about what users want and then say, "well, that's not what they really want, it must just be a vocal minority".

- Directories like /use/local and /opt are not vestigial, they serve specific purposes. I don't think it's fair to call them a "holdover". For example, without /usr/local, how do you separate software compiled and installed by the user vs. from a package manager?

- I agree completely that containerization of apps is the future.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#167
post #50

Off topic but I really dislike the trend of using “human readable durations” like “a month ago”, just tell me the bloody date, I can figure out for myself. Outlook (Mac version at least) is the worst offender. For emails prior to the current day it will say for example just “yesterday” and it will only show you the time if you click on the email. I get dozens of mails per day, having just “yesterday” for 50 messages…

Hover over the date to see the exact day and time.

Gitlab shows this relative date. I repeatedly have this issue where I'm trying to look through commits and I have to mouse over every single commit repeatedly while trying to figure out when something was changed in relation to other changes. So I mouse over one, mouse over the next, go back to the previous one, forget what the other one was, mouse over that, then mouse over a fourth and repeat.

Who came up with this insane bullshit?

It'll show me a bunch of commits all made 4 days ago. I have no idea what day that was. Was it Monday? Wednesday? I have logs from the 16th, does Gitlab think that was 4 days ago or 5?

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#168
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to know I'm not the only one experiencing this

I also wish there was a way to disable the “disable paste” feature. Worst case, if there is bizarre breakage due to frameworks that reinvent text boxes, have a keyboard shortcut or menu item to type the clipboard contents at 300 characters per minute.

Ctrl + right click may allow you to work around it.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#169
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to know I'm not the only one experiencing this

I also wish there was a way to disable the “disable paste” feature. Worst case, if there is bizarre breakage due to frameworks that reinvent text boxes, have a keyboard shortcut or menu item to type the clipboard contents at 300 characters per minute.

There are some extensions that can help with that:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=enable%20...

Specifically: Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy

I would prefer of course that the underlying issue get resolved, but in lieu this has been an excellent workaround for my needs.

Re: Firefox bug gets fixed after 25 years

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I think the solutions work fine; tap, hard press, whatever. Don't get me wrong, I share the annoyance with interfaces where I have no way to find the actual timestamp. It's better to only have a timestamp than to only have the "human readable" version with no way to get the timestamp. But (in my opinion) the best is to have the human readable version, with a way to get at the timestamp.

I think the problem is that the mechanism to trigger mouse-hover is not clear on a touchscreen - there are several different ways that need to be remembered and tried, as evidenced by your comment.

I wonder if a solution on touch is a (?) icon next to the human date? Or is that too much clutter?
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