Firefox Losing Its Way?

No, it's not "losing its way" by KingSkippus · 2006-11-26 03:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Here, allow me to post a short summary of the article to save you some time:

I think the new theme and start page is ugly, and there are a few weird bugs that haven't been fixed yet, and they haven't implemented a feature I want in a way that I want it. Therefore, it sucks.

- Don't like the default theme that comes with Firefox? Go get another that you like better. Don't like the first run page? Who cares? You only see it one time!

Last time I checked, Firefox was still open source software. If they're not fixing bugs fast enough for your liking, by all means, download the source and fix them yourself. That's not meant as a smart-ass excuse for not fixing a bug, but the article's author says:

If I have the time, I'll go through the source, but I think the best way to help is to bring it to attention.

No, the best way to help is to go through the source and fix the bug! Don't talk about it, do it, and solve everyone's problem with having it!

- The feature the author wants implemented better is an RSS feed reader. I have some news for you: it's supposed to be a basic implementation that gives you the bare essentials. If you want one with bells and whistles, go get an extension that suits your needs better. This isn't a sign that Firefox has lost its way, its a sign that it's principles haven't changed much at all.

- Last, but not least, I'm not sure what the author of this article is proposing we all do. Switch to IE7 or Opera? Yeah, that will help the open source community.

Point is, while Firefox 2.0 was never pitched as the last version of Firefox that we'll ever need as a result of its attaining perfection. Personally, I wish that they would fix the bug that causes only the first page of web pages with absolutely positioned elements to be printed. I wish I had the skill to fix it myself; I would if I could. But I'm sure they're working on it, it doesn't change the fact that Firefox 2.0 is, in my humble opinion, the best damn browser out there right now, and the last thing I'm going to do is undercut the extraordinary efforts of its developers and contributors by posting a whiny blog entry about how because there are still a few things I don't like about it, it's somehow "lost its way somewhere."

Sheez. Talk about ungrateful.

Re:No, it's not "losing its way" by KingSkippus · 2006-11-26 04:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Your comment is arrogant and typical of a lot of programmers that don't feel someone has worth unless they can code.

No, it's not. As I posted above, the reason I brought it up is because the author of the article implied that he has the skill to fix at least one of the bugs that he's complaining about. While I agree that he's under no obligation to do so if he doesn't want to, I also think it's extremely bad form to sit around complaining that no one else will.
Re:No, it's not "losing its way" by caitriona81 · 2006-11-26 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Last time I checked, Firefox was still open source software. If they're not fixing bugs fast enough for your liking, by all means, download the source and fix them yourself. That's not meant as a smart-ass excuse for not fixing a bug, but the article's author says:
This assumes that the people affected by bugs are actually capable of fixing them, and is an example of one of the worst qualities of open source software - elitism. Not to mention, the Mozilla development processes are so overburdened with red tape that an outside developer would have a very difficult time contributing effectively - while I understand why the review/supereview process is needed, it serializes development to the point where even when developers want to help, and contribute code for features that are highly desired by end users, by the time anyone gets to look at it, development has progressed to the point where any patches submitted are useless. For an example of this, look at the various bugs for roaming profile support - its been years since it was removed from the old netscape product, there was a large userbase for that feature, and major outcry to have it back - but we still don't have it, even though numerous patches have been submitted - if it's not a priority for the developers on the inside of the project, it probably doesn't get done even if someone is willing to provide code. That said, despite the issues, I've still found Firefox to be the best browser available to me - I just hope the project wakes up and listens to the community before its too late.

A Few Miss-Steps Maybe by eldavojohn · 2006-11-26 03:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

"It seems Firefox has lost its way somewhere along the passage to fame."

I think "lost its way" is too strong of a phrase. Sure, some of these points are negative but I haven't really experienced that much of a negative experience. It's good to criticize this project (with constructive criticism) so that it stays as great as it is. But to say that it's lost its way I think is going too far.

The complaints raised here are trivial features. Not the performance or stability problems I had with 1.5 but instead things like RSS & aesthetics which to me aren't too important when it comes to a browser. I'm sure for some other people RSS or theme might make a world of difference but I'm not that person and I don't wager there are many people like that.

The concern that it makes itself the default browser is valid but using the word 'hijacking' is a bit strong. Honestly, I didn't even notice this but I was going from 1.5 to 2.0 on most of my computers so that might explain why this was a non-issue for me. Perhaps they assumed if you were going to 2.0, you were coming from 1.5? Either, I agree with this qualm though I find it to be the most serious offense listed in the article.

So you may ask if Firefox has lost its way but I counter that there have merely been a few miss-steps along the way. I'm keeping an eye on IE 7 & so far it hasn't lured me away from Firefox 2.0 so I guess that's a good sign as I consider my standards to be pretty high.

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My work here is dung.

Re:A Few Miss-Steps Maybe by dvice_null · 2006-11-26 04:09 · Score: 4, Informative

> I think "lost its way" is too strong of a phrase.

I agree. The developer are mostly focusing on Firefox 3.0 anyway, because of the major improvements it will have. The 2.0 was just a small upgrade in the middle, mostly because of the PR. Because the changes in 3.0 require a lot of development and a lot of testing, they didn't want to hurry it. So I wouldn't judge Firefox because of the 2.0. Better wait for 3.0.

Slashdot losing its way? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-26 03:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Some flamebait article from a blog no one's ever heard of, probably submitted by the blogger, passes for news? The major complaint is that the blogger doesn't like the default theme and start page! Pick others!

Re:Slashdot losing its way? by An+Onerous+Coward · 2006-11-26 04:51 · Score: 4, Funny

Hey, if you think there is a bug in Slashdot's story-selection algorithm, there's nothing stopping you from fixing it. :)

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You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

The source is a fucking mess! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-26 03:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

Last time I checked, Firefox was still open source software. If they're not fixing bugs fast enough for your liking, by all means, download the source and fix them yourself.

We hear that reasoning a lot from open source advocates. But when it comes to Firefox and Mozilla in general, it just isn't a case. Their code is a mess, regardless of whether it's C++ code, or whether it's JavaScript code. Look for yourself: http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/.

I don't follow the project closely enough to know why the quality of their code is so low. It may be due to inexperienced or untalented developers. It may be due to rushed development. It may be due to a lack of refactoring. But the end result is that it's very difficult for most programmers to come up to speed with the code even just to fix a small bug, let alone implement entirely new functionality.

The poor quality of the Firefox and Gecko codebases could be indicative of why we've seen to many quality and security problems with Firefox as of late. Firefox does suffer from pretty horrendous memory leaks, even when not using any non-default extensions. The number of serious 0-day security glitches has increased dramatically, as anyone on any notable security bulletin mailing list can attest to.

Quality software builds upon a quality codebase. And until the Mozilla project can obtain that quality codebase, we will continue to see them produce poor-performing applications that suffer from frequent security flaws.

Re:The source is a fucking mess! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-26 04:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Nice troll. Looking at bonsai, of the eleven distinct patches checked in on trunk during the last day, two originated with people without CVS access (aka, third parties).
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-26 04:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

Nice troll. I'm personally as unqualified to comment on Mozilla source code quality as you are, and I'll definitely not claim everything is perfect (there's been too much abstraction in the past - hence lots of deCOMtamination work now), but every patch that goes into the Mozilla tree gets reviewed critically at least once - most often twice - for code quality, and to point to an example metric that doesn't say much of anything (but neither did you, so that should be familiar ground) - the coverity scan found fewer defects in the Firefox code (0.355) than the average baseline for open source projects (0.434).
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by daviddennis · 2006-11-26 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

In my experience, any large software system is very, very difficult to get your hands around if you didn't create it yourself. If the source code looks bad to you, the odds are one reason is that you didn't write it yourself and so you don't understand the techniques used.

For example, I like dumping things in one directory instead of having anal directory structures that take time to navigate. Others prefer having things all in their place. Neither style is particularly right or wrong. My style probably doesn't scale well to projects done by more than one developer. Their style makes it more time-consuming to get to know the code.

But in any event, I can't pass judgement on this source code, since I can't find it. I looked through the source he linked to and I couldn't find a single C file. In fact, I couldn't find anything that seemed to deal with the browser's core funtionality, such as rendering pages or putting up menus or toolbars.

I didn't find anything about what I saw in the JavaScript that seemed too bad. It seemed reasonably straightforward to understand, but of course the numerous options made it more complex than I'd like. That's inevitable in this kind of project, so it's not really a fault.

Is there any kind of guide to the source code, that would explain where the heart of it is?

D
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by rudy_wayne · 2006-11-26 05:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

"But in any event, I can't pass judgement on this source code, since I can't find it. I looked through the source he linked to and I couldn't find a single C file."

Exactly the problem with the "if you don't like it, fix it yourself" answer.

The particular source code you are looking for (rendering pages or putting up menus or toolbars) is located in some directory whose name makes no sense except to the person who originally created it. You probably looked in the directory called "Browser", but, as someone who used to build my own customized versions of Firefox, I can tell you -- it ain't there.

Unfortunately it's been over a year since I worked with the code so I don't remember where things are anymore and have no desire to go thru the whole process of finding them again.
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by beuges · 2006-11-26 05:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

"A not insignificant amount of the code is a mess, yes, but it's not low-quality"

Maintainability is an extremely important aspect of development. If the code is a mess, then it is not high-quality code.

"Being a mess never implies low quality, it just means that a decade or so of cruft has built up."

Being a mess implies that it is difficult to maintain, which implies that it is of poor quality. The proper way to develop is to refactor during development, so that you don't accumulate cruft or messiness. I'd say that cruft by definition implies low-quality code.
A very important aspect of development is design. A proper design phase for new features/code will also include looking at the existing design and how the new stuff can fit into it. You don't just go and tack your new feature on the end of what you already have, or you end up with unmaintainable, messy, cruft. You look at what you want to do, and you evolve the existing design to make the new code integrate into it, rather than be tacked on with sticky tape.
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by MrDrBob · 2006-11-26 05:48 · Score: 5, Informative

If you look in the layout, view, xpcom and xulrunner directories, you'll find a lot of the core code. The browser directory is for the JavaScript and XUL files which make up the interface and product-specific parts of Firefox. :-)
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by osu-neko · 2006-11-26 06:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Bull. People who write hard to figure out code do so with pretty much equal ease in any language. People who write easy to read and maintain code again do so pretty much equally well in any language. Reason being, the skills used to write maintainable code have nothing at all whatsoever to do with the programming language. "Elegant syntax" of the language? Gimme a break. Elegant code is elegant code, regardless of the language syntax. Elegance has do to with the underlying idea expressed, not the syntax of the language.

Oh, and Python has lousy syntax, but that's just a personal opinion on my part, not in any way an objective fact. My personal preferences on syntax don't apply to anyone but me. Nor do yours.

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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by Shawn+is+an+Asshole · 2006-11-26 07:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Mozilla codebase is a mess. However, it is getting better. Did you look at it at all when Netscape first released the source? It was absolutely terrible. The Mozilla guys have done a good job at cleaning it over the years, but it's still a mess. They really should have just started from scratch and used the old codebase as a reference.

However, if you really want to see a codebase that's an absolute mess, download the source to OpenOffice. Same as with Mozilla, the developers are making progress on cleaning it up, but it's still a total mess.

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"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Re:The source is a fucking mess! by thealsir · 2006-11-26 10:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm running firefox 2.0 with a rather minimal set of extensions. Let me tell you, does it leak. I have 1GB of RAM, and, left open long enough (say, three or four days) the system starts slowing down dramatically, and firefox starts not responding that well, UI starts not painting right, etc. I wonder what the heck is going on.

Then I go into task manager to find firefox consuming 900MB of RAM with tons put in the page file.

NO OTHER application I have ever used does it to this extreme, and while I'm sure IE has some not so good memory leaks, in my years of using IE that has NEVER happened to me.

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Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.

Let me break it down for you by Howzer · 2006-11-26 03:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hopelessly misleading blurb. Here's the edited-for-truth version. The italics indicate the original text:

An anonymous reader A NeoSmart staffer writes:

"NeoSmart Technologies has a recap an attack article on Firefox 2.0 and it's shortcomings we say some things that we thought would get some traffic.

Aside from the technical aspects the things we don't understand but will criticize anyway, the article raises some good questions ridiculous mischaracterizations about the Firefox "community," [Editor's Note: Why the "sarcasm quotes"? Are you saying it isn't a community?] it's future, and what it's goals are at the end of the day we inserted a meaningless sports metaphor here.

Their conclusion sophomoric trolling you can safely ignore? Who cares!

There. Now what was so hard about that, Slashdot eds? Oh, and while you're at it, "its" was incorrectly spelled three times out of three.

Where did all the Mozilla/Firefox enthusiasim go? by linebackn · 2006-11-26 04:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

The article is slashdotted, but I think the main problem here is that Firefox has pretty much reached perfection. Firefox was intended to be a stripped down version of the Mozilla suite with just the browser. Now there seems to be a bigger push for built-in gee-whiz features.

I guess the community has just gotten board and went home. Specifically I have noticed:

* Mozillazine almost never seems to have any news anymore.
* The SpreadFirefox image galleries have been screwed up for ages now and people keep posting crap that never never gets cleaned up.
* The Mozilla store seems to have been having problems lately (it would hang and timeout when placing an order) and there Firefox CDs are still at old 1.5.0.4 version. (A physical factory pressed CD you can hold in your hand can go a long way convincing a PHB that this is real software!)
* And where is Thunderbird 2.0 anyway?

Come on folks! We still have an evil browser from Microsoft to crush!

Re:FF experience by shmlco · 2006-11-26 04:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Personally, I think the team set expectations too high with a "major" 2.0 version number increase, when in actuallity there's little added that seemed to warrant such a major release.

I suspect that if this had been released as FF 1.6 little of this type of criticism would be appearing, because then the implication would not have been that of releasing a new "blockbuster", but that they're simply adding improvements and features at a smooth, steady pace.

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Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

noticed out library is not using it by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-26 04:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

I noticed our library hasn't upgraded to Firefox 2.0 at Umass Boston. I thought it was interesting and asked the reference librarian why. She said the IT people didn't think it was significant enough to bother upgrading and people also didn't like the way it looked. Interesting, I thought to myself.

This is one of the reasons I switched back to the Mozilla Seamonkey Suite. It uses less memory when you run Mail and the Browser together than Firefox and Thunderbird. I like the more community orientation of the development also. All you need to do is throw on a good theme like SeaFox http://markbokil.org/index.php?section=tech&conten t=c_linuxseafox.php and add an extension to enhance the UI like MonkeyMenu http://markbokil.org/index.php?section=tech&conten t=c_linuxmonkeymenu.php and you have a better browser than Firefox 2.0

Re:Volunteers are not slaves. by toddbu · 2006-11-26 07:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

What I find so interesting about this post is that it's exactly why companies are nervous about using open source for mission critical projects. You're absolutely right - since people pay nothing for the software then they can make no demands of it. I've even posted bug reports on open source projects that start out saying something like "I know that I haven't paid anything for this so I have no right to complain, but..." So give me one good reason, after reading this post, that any IT manager would want to bet their future or the future of their company on open source? At least with proprietary software you have the right to demand that things get fixed, and if you don't get what you want then you can find an alternative.

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If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.

Re:Volunteers are not slaves. by filterchild · 2006-11-26 08:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

I have noticed that the free software world tends to mirror the commercial software world in this one aspect: the larger the team, the more arrogant they become. I have, on several occasions, sent feature requests to software projects run by one or two people. They tended to be very cheerful and happy (flattered, almost!) that I had used their software to the point of finding a bug and submitting it. One developer actually patched the source tree and had an updated build posted within two hours. The few times that I've dealt with larger projects, they were not as helpful or happy to hear from me. Maybe it's just the issue of being jaded, being tired of so many bug reports? I'm not sure, but I can definitely say that some projects (be they open or commercial) could really use a bit of soul searching and re-commitment to their missions.

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