Slashdot Mirror
Meet The Co-Creator of Firefox
Jay Langhurst writes "Learn more about the roots of Firefox and about the 19-year-old who co-created the browser in this article. 'To take an internship at Netscape during the summer of 2001, Ross moved with his mother to a rented apartment near Netscape's offices in Mountain View, Calif. She drove him to work each morning.'"
At least we know he's a real geek.
Is the apartment two-floors, so he can still be in mom's basement?
I want to hug him, kiss him, have his children....
I want FireFox for Amiga.
It does in Firefox nightly development builds, and it will in Firefox 1.1, which should be out in a couple of months or so.
Of course Slashdot could get a code cleanup before then...
Haven't you been paying attention? Go and Google and you will learn that it was fixed in the mainline long ago, and you will also learn why it wasn't rolled in to FireFox 1.0.
*sigh*
Gee, I wonder what codebase he used to create Firefox, then?
feh. stuff.
1) Download Mozilla code
2) Change the name and turn off several features in the Makefile
3) ???
4) Profit!!!
You may disagree with me, but you have to acknowledge the existance of my highly educated opinion.
This might be band-aiding the situation, but I haven't had to deal with the /. rendering probs since I downloaded the Slashfix extension.
Luckily, other people whore my fix for me these days, but see my sig for a link to Slashfix. And when 1.1 comes out in a few months, this won't be necessary any more as the underlying issue has been patched ages ago.
And have his appearances in major newspapers posted on his eponymous Web site helped with those California girls at school?
"They're the ones that aren't impressed at all," he said with a laugh
I've had less trouble viewing pages in Firefox than in any other browser I've ever used. Netscape 4.x was a nightmare, Netscape 6 was only slightly better. IE 5 and 6 had their good points, but still had proprietary functions/attributes that made it not universal (and don't even get me started on the security vulnerabilities). Firefox has been, far and wide, the most compatible browser for me, as a programmer and as a web designer.
At this point, I only test my work in IE because I know some of my users still use it, but that's changing fast.
And they said zombies weren't real!
So refreshing to see he didn't live in his mothers basement....
What gives?
Odd isn't it - how many times a flat broke intern turns our entire industry upside-down?
On another note, I wonder how the IE team feels knowing that an intern who had to share an apartment with his mom and have her drive him to work basically outperformed their entire team.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Just think, If every 19 year old did and internship and produced something of this quality by the time they were 19 and still being driven to work by mum and not colecting royalties. Someday, bloody someday.
Shoddy journalism and taking comments out of context.
Note how its not actually quotes but summed up by the reporter...that's his mistake not Ross's.
Studies have shown that a million monkeys, banging on a million typewriters, will produce Microsoft-standards-compliant IE releases on an average of once every 6 minutes.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Does anyone have a good understanding of the actual role Ross played here and whether the media reports are being fair to other contributors by focussing on him?
switch FROM IE. Sorry.
How slow is your PC? I've heard that it's a timing bug, and faster PCs are more affected by it.
Here is what he did say: "During my years on the stellar construction advisory board, I was involved in a lot of initiatives. Not only did I create the sun, I created the moon and planets and a pair of really swell comets."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Co-creator? FireFox is derived from the Mozilla code base, with a few changes. The creators of Mozilla are the real creators of FireFox. It's wrong to give any amount of credit for the creation of FireFox to someone who just added some little features and optimized it a bit. The media just likes to make the "story" more interesting by saying a 19 year old "kid" created something used by millions. I can see a new media sweet-heart in the making. Like Linus Torvalds. Yes, he started a good kernel and gave a major kick to Free Software development, but it seems like the media just loves project as if he created every program we use on a Linux distro today and tends to forget the fact there people/groups of people who have done as much as or even more than him.
I haven't had any problems on either of my systems; AMD 1500 laptop and an intel 2.8Ghz P4.
...this isn't helping the lives-with-his-mother geek stereotype much.
Is this the same kid that they interviewed in that documentary called Code Rush that was on PBS a few years ago?
because slashdot spits out garbage HTML that doesn't fit even the most lax of validation checks.
slashdot's html was written back in 1997ish, and hasn't been updated since.
I've got an AMD 1800 and I've never seen any issues either.
Here is the actual bug report though. It has to do with the left column size not always being correct. I don't think I've ever seen this happen to me though.
Link
Why do people care about personal recognotion THAT much. As long as the contributor know themselves that theay are part of the project, that should be enough. I'm sure Ross himself would be the first to admit that he is not THE Firefox guy..firefox (the browser formerly known as firebird) is an example of collaboration. As a Firefox user, I know that it is the product of hard work from allot of people. Nevertheless we cannot deny its origin ..
am i the only one who has absolutely no fucking clue what you people are bitching about, even though i use firefox every day to read slashdot?
- tristan
My question for you is why do the Slashbot continually claim that Firefox is so superior when it won't even render their favorite site correctly?
Because, even with this flaw, it's better than IE (the browser that's usually compared against)? I mean, Firefox isn't perfect, but IE is even less, from what I've seen.
If Slashdot doesn't render correctly how the hell can they claim that every site will work "just fine"?
Point me to a post where it has been said that all sites there is render just fine instead of just claiming something you think you've heard.
If their favorite site doesn't render correctly under Firefox do you really think that they are going to believe you when you tell them that it is better?
Depends on what they believe matters more, perfect rendering of Slashdot, or other issues like security problems. Also, Slashdot should render correctly in Firefox 1.1.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Hence it is Slashdot's problem, and not Firefox's. People always say "It's up to the coder to create valid code" - so lets see that rather than whining about a browser that sticks to the standards just fine.
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
It's "Geek Mythology" not "Greek Mythology".
I've *never* had rendering problems with Slashdot. Am I in the minority?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Is there any chance that we can use him as the other example?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Tis true, sometimes firefox does not render /. correctly.
At least on my firefox.
Wired Magazine prominently features Blake Ross on the cover of their Feb '05 issue for their lead story, "The Firefox Explosion."
;^)" ]
Wired Mag doesn't have the cover online yet, meaning I probably got it from a newstand that put it out early (the 34th St PATH Station newstand in NYC, for those interested).
The issue also features an "interesting" piece: a fake memo from the future...written to one Bill Gates from newly-hired employee Linus Torvalds - concerning Winux, Microsoft's next-generation OS.
[Apparently, Bill's "pitch" to Linus in this post-apocalyptic future was "come on Linus...infect the Mothership
Anyway, I hate to sound like a pitchman for Wired, but it's worth the look.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Gee, it must be essreenim bashing day. Sheesh, my qualifications are none of your business and what proof do I have for you anyway? What proof do you have for me? My /. identity is deliberately anaonymous in nature. Also, even if I had "dropped out..of state.." that would have nothing to do with the sum of my contribution to the open source movement etc. Don't blame me if I have less of an ego than others..
Not entirely true...you have to just help it along a little. +"+" then +"-" fixes the display. It's not ideal, but it works and just becomes a reflex after a while. I learnt that from slashdotters...thanx!
**sigh**
I always have to wait halfway through the month for the damn magazine to arrive (I never expected a subscrition would bite me in the ass).
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
And in Soviet Russia, you drive your mum to work.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." --Newton to Hooke, 5 Feb. 1676;
'Nuff said really.
If Firefox renders Slashdot wrong because of problems with Slashdot code, how will 1.1 fix it? Slashdot isn't changing, Firefox is.
http://ipod.fresh27.net/
yes
The Wired cover is available here:
Wired.com
It's posted, just not linked up.
Per Asa Dotzler's blog
From my experience, the formatting in a Slashdot page only gets messed up maybe 1 in 10 times. Then I just hit Reload (F5) and it's fine.
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
I just installed the Slashfix mentioned in parent, and the rendering problem is no more. Band-aid or not, it works. (Thanks!)
Firefox is nice, but it's yet another browser. That's one thing that shocked me. Netscape brought the browser to the masses but they never really moved passed it.
For quite sometime people's needs have grown beyond the browser. Java Applet, and ActiveX have been bolted on, but what is needed is a more seamless integration that provides a more traditional application feel.
It's unfortunately that we're still stuck using a "browser" when what we need is something more dynamic and powerfull.
Firefox is yet another browser. Definitely better than many of the current crop. But it would be nice to see something truly innovative.
--
I forgot my sig line
To add to this: the rendering bug isn't that bad. I don't think I even notice it anymore I've become so used to it. It's not invasive that it renders the site unreadable. So I think some people just like to whinge and create mountains our of molehills to garner attention.
Hence it is Slashdot's problem, and not Firefox's. People always say "It's up to the coder to create valid code" - so lets see that rather than whining about a browser that sticks to the standards just fine.
Yes, sites are coded with IE in mind and thus they are likely not standard compliant and they will break other browsers but this isn't about that at all. It's about how the general computer user will see Firefox when they attempt to use it.
So, the general computer user hears all this Firefox hype and downloads it. Installs it and fires up one of his freshly migrated bookmarks. The page doesn't render correctly.
You think that they are going to give this another try?
Same here to be honest. I don't really see anything "off" on Slashdot and view it with Firefox as well. Okay, I also usually just read it in Thunderbird... bird, fox.. what's the difference. No problems here at least :)
Is it just on Windows, I have been browsed using netscape/mozilla/Konqueor/Firefox and have yet to see problems on /., or do I just not see them as problems? What does not render properly?
It doesn't matter whether the HTML is garbage - it should render the same way every time you load it. However, there is a class of bugs in the gecko engine called "reflow" bugs, which only show up in certain situations, based on the timing of various events during page load, which sometimes cause the page to render differently.
This *IS* a bug in Mozilla/Firefox, and it *HAS* been fixed for a long time (since before Firefox 1.0 was released) but the fix was not included in FF1.0 because it broke other things.
For many reflow bugs, you can construct valid HTML that exposes it just as well as garbage "HTML".
My server
Odd, I have a subscription and I got it on Saturday. Maybe it's because of location? (I'm in DC)
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Nope, it happens on linux.
I will say firefox is being run on a linux box, thrown to my solaris box.
And is probably not the most recent version of firefox but close.
Offtopic... come on moderators, it's a valid point
Quick fix for those of you not wanting to download plugins:
Ctrl +
Ctrl -
This seems to fix all render bugs by forcing Firefox to re-render the page (it's a zoom change) without waiting for anything from the server (which IIRC is the root cause).
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Slashdot is the only site that I experience rendering issues on. Care to share a few examples?
Oops missed 2nd question.
When reading the comments for an article.
The comments are pushed all the way to the left, overlapping the the left column(Sections, user info, etc)
So it is hard to read the first few comments.
Hrmm I do notice a little overlap but not more then a few pixels, guess its just something with my setup. Thanks for answering!
Not gonna happen dude. If Firefox ever does get decent market share, Microsoft will release a new version of IE that actually has useful enhancements in it and it will be game over. It's a war you can't win. At best you can skirmish for a while.
I wish it were otherwise, but that's just the cold hard realities of the situation.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
I hope this kid takes a warning from Chairman Bill and passes up the opportunity to pose for kittenish pix in teen mags.
Nope, I also had no fucking clue. Then, I read the posts following yours, and I still have no fucking clue.
Perhaps these so called problems are related to the browser config or a Firefox extension?
You and your mum don't even work.
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Here is a screenshot of how it sometimes goes wrong. It happens about 1/6 times for me.
I took that screenshot just for you three in this thread, so be proud...
- Jax
I'd agree... in fact, I didn't even notice it was a bug the first couple of times it happened to me. A simple refresh (sometimes two at *most*) will fix it. There are plenty of pages out there that have to be refreshed to fix rendering errors stemming from half-loaded code, etc. I joked with a friend of mine that FireFox was fast enough that I could fit in a refresh while his IE was still loading it. Heh.
LegendMUD
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
I also run it on two laptops, one as slow as a PIII-850.
No major rendering problems with Slashdot so far. At least none that I notice. I dunno. *shrug*
Wierd, I have not had that happen to me.
Are you by any chance using any extensions that modify the page source or page rendering in any way?
Can anyone comment on what specifically causes the problem? (like a broken tag for example)
Happens even without extentions (Although I've just installed a new plugin to try and fix it.
2 7
Read https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2175
It seems to be "reflowing". There is another (much less extream than mine) screenshot, too.
- Jax
Depends what you mean by winning. If the new generation of gecko browsers drive MS into upgrading their security, adding tabbed browsing, and a host of other things that the 'others' now do, then really, the war will be won. Some people think the point is to get rid of M$. The truth is, the point is to get better software out there for everyone. And in that sense, Firefox and the others can make this a reality.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Alright who is working on MgroeningFortune 6.6?
I simply must have this.
Artist will always make art.
There's nothing cooler on the world than being front cover of Wired magazine, specially when it's for being co-author of the best browser around. That makes him hot enough for me. Yummy.
Holy crap, put a lightsaber in his hand and he looks like Anakin.
He probably acts better than Hayden Christensen, too, although I'll wager he'd have a hard time (no pun intended) keeping it professional whilst making out with every geek's favourite fantasy, Natalie Portman.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
You both certainly met the wrong chicks.
I've just recieved my copy today. It seems like there have been a lot of articles about him just being released right about now. This can't be just a coincidence, can it?
i've never seen this happen. and i use firefox on mac, linux, and windows rather requently. *shrug*
- tristan
By this logic, a browser with a buffer overflow problem could say that it is not their fault, but the attackers.
Bulletproof, even for invalid HTML? There is such a thing as stretching the standards, but how can the browser be expected to compensate for flagrant user error? You can only bend over backwards so far in an attempt to provide backwards compatibility. If I'm a non-compliant web page writer, how far should I reasonably expect the platform for which I am writing HTML to "do what I meant, not what I said"?
Bottom line: the standards are there for a reason; namely, that a web page written with standards-compliant HTML will render correctly in a standards-compliant browser. Insisting that the browser also render non-compliant code correctly defeats the entire purpose of having standards in the first place; it's just unreasonable.
By that logic, a text editor that uses \a for line breaks could say that it's cat's fault that your computer is beeping like mad and showing everything on one line.
I mean, cat's code should be bulletproof, right?
I'm in Canada, that likely has something to do with it.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
It is a Firefox rendering bug, but one that only appears because of Slashdot's disgusting HTML.
Blake Ross has the Wired cover on his blog.
Renders fine with me. Moox 'M3' build. Firefox 1.0
I would expect -1 Offtopic not -1 Troll. Wow, I'm assuming the moderators have taken this as an offense to Ross's Mother. If you find it offensive I apologize for my statement. It is very offtopic and quite inconsiderable for Slashdot.org.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I suppose that's while they don't have a link to w3c's html validator in the footer, like some other sites do. checking out the Validator does wonders for your mark-up, but its hell on your ego.
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And that's also why they block the validator. Should check it out.
Oh My 72 errors on the front page! You can block a url but you can't stop people front saving to disk and uploading it as a file to check.
Actualy 72 is less than I really expected considering how old the base code is they have bits and peices of html generating code spanning 4 or 5 versions of HTML and chunks from add servers and such.
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