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Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

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Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#61

Post by pmelendez »

creshal wrote: post #34
toyg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happened before, with the transition from Mozilla Suite to Firefox. And let's be honest: XUL was just lipstick on the pig that is cross-platform development. HTML/CSS/JS are now fast enough to look like a slightly better pig, so here we go. Also, there's a generational shift underway. You and me could find crazy that people would openly choose to use IDEs built on HTML/CSS/JS, but that's what a lot of young folks…

> You and me could find crazy that people would openly choose to use IDEs built on HTML/CSS/JS, but that's what a lot of young folks are doing I'm 25 and I feel to old for this industry already.

The only good thing (I think) of a generalist is that one is used to adapt, but yeah... it gets boring sometime. Although after a while, is interesting to see how we reinvent wheels and show them with a new fancy name, it is a pattern that you would see more or less each 10 years.

Sometimes it feels like everything was already invented in the 60's.

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#62

Post by creshal »

cubano wrote: post #47
creshal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You and me could find crazy that people would openly choose to use IDEs built on HTML/CSS/JS, but that's what a lot of young folks are doing I'm 25 and I feel to old for this industry already.

Stick around for another 25 like I have...the fun is just starting!

Fun as in yelling at people to get off my digital, hand-optimized assembly lawn?

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#63

Post by toyg »

chillingeffect wrote: post #46
betteringred wrote: post #17

They want to kill XUL for Firefox so they can be all fancy HTML. So they have to kill Thunderbird, a XUL app. In a few years the all new HTML Firefox will come out. My bet is that it will suck. It will lack a TON of features that the existing Firefox has, but hey, it's all HTML! And you won't be able to stick on the old one, because within a week or two some critical security flaw will be discovered and eventually (l…

> But hey, donate to Mozilla! $5, $15, $25, Ah yes, thank you for the reminder! http://imgur.com/hLZp8SG Now that I actually have a career and money I have no problem giving back. I'm glad I can donate to Ubuntu and Wikipedia nowadays. I am grateful for everything Firefox has given me for well over 10 years... I really don't know what XUL is (intermediate language between HTML and FF UI?), but I guess I do feel sorry…

Not sure if serious, but...

XUL (or rather XULRunner) is a cross-platform UI toolkit, basically a Javascript+XML runtime built with C++. It's what Mozilla programs are built with today, abstracting out a lot of OS-specific details. It's unlikely to ever be rewritten in any language, and pretty much failed to get any traction outside of the Mozilla ecosystem.

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#65

Post by creshal »

pmelendez wrote: post #61
creshal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You and me could find crazy that people would openly choose to use IDEs built on HTML/CSS/JS, but that's what a lot of young folks are doing I'm 25 and I feel to old for this industry already.

The only good thing (I think) of a generalist is that one is used to adapt, but yeah... it gets boring sometime. Although after a while, is interesting to see how we reinvent wheels and show them with a new fancy name, it is a pattern that you would see more or less each 10 years. Sometimes it feels like everything was already invented in the 60's.

> Sometimes it feels like everything was already invented in the 60's.

Reading up on the capabilities of early mainframes is eye-opening if you (like me) grew up on Pentiums.

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#66

Post by ZenoArrow »

crististm wrote: post #54
ZenoArrow wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What features are you missing from Thunderbird?

I use TB daily - I did not ask a for a feature that did not find. But for several years it has been neglected. And the "open source community" did not step up to the plate and fix the problem. I argue that there is no such a community that will save TB after Mozilla drops it. Edit: Yes, the "search mail" feature that wasn't

> "I argue that there is no such a community that will save TB after Mozilla drops it."

Yes, I realise that was your point, but my point is what work is required? If there's no work required, then there's no need for the community to save it.

It's an email client. So long as it sends and receives email, and can be compiled for the latest OS versions, what work is needed?

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#67

Post by gryph0n »

mverwijs wrote: post #25

Anyone know how this impacts the e-mail functionality of Seamonkey? (I've actually started using Seamonkey again on a whim. The last couple of weeks. Somehow, browsing feels more snappy with Seamonkey than with Firefox.)

What a circle that would be !!!

Phoenix (later, again renamed to Firefox) was originally split off from Mozilla/Netscape Navigator since the 'suite' was presumably slow.

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#68

Post by toyg »

orik wrote: post #59
72deluxe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why rewrite it in another language? It isn't currently broken. Things that are not broken do not need rewriting.

Maybe they decided there's too much technical debt and they can't make changes to the browser as fast as they wish they could in the current framework? Not 'broken' in a traditional sense but still a valid reason to rewrite.

Yeah, but there is a trade-off involved. If you spend 3 years rewriting your toolkit, then the time you will eventually save on further changes has to offset those 3 years, and that's very hard for most projects.

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#69

Post by OMGWTF »

simpleigh wrote: post #57
betteringred wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for writing new apps in HTML, I think Atom and VSCode are awesome, but I'm not for rewriting huge legacy apps to be HTML apps for no good reason. The reasons given, that XUL requires maintenance that Mozilla engineers don't enjoy doing, is a joke considering the amount of effort to maintain XUL is less than 1% of the amount of effort to move Firefox to HTML. No one has listed the ten awesome features that we'…

> The reasons given, that XUL requires maintenance that Mozilla engineers don't enjoy doing, is a joke considering the amount of effort to maintain XUL is less than 1% of the amount of effort to move Firefox to HTML. Ah, but maintaining XUL means working on old code (which is boring), but moving Firefox to HTML means working on new shiny code (which is exciting). https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

Try https://web.archive.org/web/20151126183335/https://www.jwz.o... if the link doesn't work...

Re: Mozilla Wants To Split Off Its Thunderbird Email/Chat Client

#70

Post by facetube »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #66
crististm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use TB daily - I did not ask a for a feature that did not find. But for several years it has been neglected. And the "open source community" did not step up to the plate and fix the problem. I argue that there is no such a community that will save TB after Mozilla drops it. Edit: Yes, the "search mail" feature that wasn't

> "I argue that there is no such a community that will save TB after Mozilla drops it." Yes, I realise that was your point, but my point is what work is required? If there's no work required, then there's no need for the community to save it. It's an email client. So long as it sends and receives email, and can be compiled for the latest OS versions, what work is needed?

Security updates, for one.
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