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Mozilla Introduces Browser-Based WebIDE
mpicpp (3454017) writes with word that Mozilla released a full development environment integrated into Firefox (available now in nightly builds). From the announcement:
Developers tell us that they are not sure how to start app development on the Web, with so many different tools and templates that they need to download from a variety of different sources. We’re solving that problem with WebIDE, built directly into Firefox. Instead of starting from zero we provide you with a functioning blueprint app with the click of a button. You then have all the tools you need to start creating your own app based on a solid foundation. WebIDE helps you create, edit, and test a new Web application right from your browser. It lets you install and test apps on Firefox OS devices and simulators and integrates the Firefox Developer Tools for seamless debugging and inspection across those devices. This is a first step towards debugging across various platforms and devices over WiFi using open remote debugging APIs.
The default editor is based on CodeMirror, but the protocol for interacting with the IDE is open and support for other editors (Emacs anyone?) should appear soon.
thanks
Ah, the inner platform effect at its finest.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
YouTube video has developer labouring away making an XXX app ...
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
From the History of Firefox Wikipedia article:
Hyatt, Ross, Hewitt and Chanial[7] developed their browser to combat the software bloat of the Mozilla Suite
Oh ffs. Firefox is supposed to be a browser. Put the web IDE in it's own product. This is going to introduce yet more attack vectors and bugs into the code.
Firefox *really* needs forking to follow the original vision. Make a fast, lean, controllable web BROWSER. Not a bloody operating system. Not a bloody IDE, not a bloody whizz bang collection of crud.
Developers suck. They get something to a good point and every single time they tinker and fiddle leading to bloated, unusable, resource hungry, insecure crap.
You don't support Emacs. Emacs supports you!
Firefox better watch itself. Trying to "nudge" people into creating apps that only work properly with their browser / OS may not end well for it.
We hardly knew ya. Too bad you learnt nothing from your dad, Netscape.
looks good to me
Stop adding stupid shit to firefox.
If it were an add-on, I'd have nothing against it. Do not integrate unnecessary crap into the browser, history has made it clear it's not going to end well.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Netscape Composer, A.D. 1997.
There's a browser safer than Firefox, it is Firefox, with NoScript
Mozilla.org is very quickly expanding Firefox to becoming Mozilla II. Remember when the suite was split apart into its various components, leaving Firefox a very lightweight-but-extensible browser, and Thunderbird a lean and mean yet also expandable email client, and if you still wanted the monolithic build you downloaded Mozilla instead?
Not any more. Firefox is very quickly edging its way toward becoming a heavyweight web development suite again. I think if users want that, they will either install the Web Developer extension or maybe just go straight to installing the Mozilla suite. Why are they "bloating" Firefox again instead of making the IDE an optional add-on via extensions?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
So now all that is left to convince anybody to actually use Firefox OS.
"Developers tell us that they are not sure how to start app development on the Web, withso many different tools and templates that they need to download from a variety of different sources." So they solve it by creating yet another tool. Of course.
You might very well be mistaken. XXX is intrinsic to the coat of arms of Amsterdam. Obviously this fine demo comes from a developer working for the city government, you insensitive clod!
There are several explanations why this is so, with fire, flood, pestilence being the prevalent theory.
http://boingboing.net/2006/04/...
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
I've seen so many IDEs come and go over the years that I am glad I can just use Emacs and have the same muscle memory for commands and typing since I started using it in 1991. I've always thought about making a list of dead development environments, but can't remember all of them. Anyone remember when BRIEF and WordStar keyboard compatibility was a selling point?
"Developers tell us that they are not sure how to start app development on the Web, with so many different tools and templates that they need to download from a variety of different sources."
So the plan of having too many tools to do development is to create another tool? Man, that's some awesome thinking right there. Reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/927/
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
This is not a problem in itself. The problem is when they propose to do a better tool and just end up creating a yet another very bad tool.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
... real tough guys use debug.com
Developers tell us that they are not sure how to start app development on the Web, with so many different tools and templates that they need to download from a variety of different sources.
I know it can be a bit overwhelming at first, but this icky feeling is called choice. things can be unique and different and thats okay, so long as they work in chrome and firefox and adhere to good coding practices like not exploiting specific browser quirks to achieve something. Also its entirely possible the web isnt the best place for you to write your "app" and thats okay too.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So, this is what all those browser features got removed to make room for...
Mozilla Firefox, the new IDE. By installing a bunch of ad-ons, you can even use it as a web browser.
(insert XKCD comic about standards here)
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I think we would all agree that code bloat goes beyond web browsers, it's a problem for every piece of software, a problem from the future, waiting to happen, somewhere there along the development timeline, when someone with insufficient life wisdom decides for yet another feature, and as features become less related to the core functionality of the original product, the code bloat becomes more of a nuisance.
Since the psychology of developers can hardly be changed fast, especially the inexperienced ones (wisdom does not equal competency here - you can contribute to libevent, but not have a clue about the kind of wisdom I am talking about), I think another solution is necessary.
This solution is to at least try to decouple the features from the core product in such a way that these do not impair loading and runtime times, can be distributed/added/removed separately and generally do not impact the core product. Dynamic library loading, etc - all these things can be used with good measure to combat perceived bloat. But we still need to educate each other on these things.
The good and related principle of high-cohesion low-coupling should also be applied.
My point is, in itself, a gazillion addons is not a problem, as long as a person not wanting one single addon can use the product to their satisfaction where mere existence of plugin/addon/dev-IDE system does not impact his experience negatively. And it shouldn't - if you can load libraries on demand, you can decouple the IDE from Firefox, so that people who never heard of it or do not want it, can live in blissful ignorance of its mere existence.
The browser has become completely unusable and they keep on adding shitty features that 99% of the users won't use. Everyday i'm more convinced that i took the right decision when dumped Firefox
Hey that's cute, does anyone remember XUL from last decade?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Anyone remember Netscape Gold? How long will we have to wait for email client, news reader, and Kitchen Sink(tm) to be bundled back in?
So much for a lightweight browser and codebase (Firefox has already marched past that line in the sand, but this is a monumental increase to the marching speed) Not to mention the potential security implications for managed desktops.
A sleek, once-efficient browser has now been turned into a bloated platform for for IDE hosting. Why would anyone want to use such a mess for such a critical part of their development infrastructure, especially in light of the continuing whimsical and frequent changes to the look, feel and operation of the FireFox UI by out of touch developers.
Firefox 3000 should arrive no later than Summer 2016.
The IDE does not incur any loading time.
It is just a bunch of HTML/JS/CSS files only loaded when you open the WebIDE.
New things are always on the horizon
The "Blinky" tag district of the Internet is open for business.. oh gawd...
How many FF users want this WebIDE? It's built-in.
How many FF users want a status bar or tabs not on top? Must use an add-on...
So it's basically a so called web application? Like c9.io f.e.?
Because I was under the impression that its more akin to say, Firebug.
Well, Firebug is an addon which is also written in HTML/JS/CSS.
This has always been mostly true in Firefox, Firefox is built in XUL which is an XML variant and Javascript.
An addon just has different privileges than a normal webpage.
It is just a zip-file with a different extension. Office documents like ODT and DOCX these days are also just zip-files with a different extension.
Just have a look at the code:
https://github.com/firebug/fir...
When I was browsing through the files, just to make sure, I noticed Firebug also used the same codemirror editor:
https://github.com/firebug/fir...
New things are always on the horizon
Then I just hope they don't bundle it with Firefox, so that people who just want the [simple] browser, do not have to download code their computer will probably never run. And if it does, it can download on demand, since it is an addon, just like the rest of them.
Mozilla should abstain temptations and prefer the standard editor.
I implemented a web ide, but don't know how to get it out there.
http://tty.wanfear.com/~mbrito/WebBuilder.html
Much as I hate VBCode, the old VB IDE was actually fairly nice for designing simple interfaces. If I could find something similar to make useful applications in a cross-platform manner, I'd be happy to use it. I think the closest might be the Netbeans IDE, but that's still somewhat of a PITA compared to the old VB'ish interface.
A few 100kb out of a 25MB+ download, I doubt anyone cares.
New things are always on the horizon
Not really no, but it's sloppy thinking nevertheless. Take the things that not even half of the people will use, out of the download file.
Some people download on cellular networks and pay per megabyte downloaded, and in any case you cannot predict everybodys usage patterns.
Bottomline - it's a web browser, not an operating system bundled with applications. Just my two cents. I know they are going to make one out of Firefox anyway.
Someone said already - its the inner platform effect. Reinventing the [inferior] wheel.
Anyone remember Netscape Gold? How long will we have to wait for email client, news reader, and Kitchen Sink(tm) to be bundled back in?
So much for a lightweight browser and codebase (Firefox has already marched past that line in the sand, but this is a monumental increase to the marching speed) Not to mention the potential security implications for managed desktops.
"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
In this case, the browser already had all the parts and pieces. Because of remote debugging API, the developer tools and so on. So an editor was just a small step.
Judging by the article summary. They wanted to offer something which was easily discoverable.
That is all there is too it. Nothing more, nothing less.
New things are always on the horizon
Looks an aweful lot like cloud9....
https://c9.io/
I mean, on this site people used to rant that in good old days every computer user was a programmer or at the very least had easy access to programming tools (by e.g. turning the computer on), such as Commodore 64 with all its PEEKs and POKEs (thick paper manual included), or how you would write an assembler from machine language when you didn't run out of bits, Hypercard on the Macintosh, the oft ridiculed Qbasic, and other examples.
Some of these were good, some of these sucked but at least noobs and unsupecting users could get some results, even if just toying around. .wmv or realplayer streaming were behind us. And I would hate to go back to FF 3.0 : it was slower and crashed more and leaked more, as amazing as that reads.
If we get one new "default" coding platform, isn't that a good thing? (Google developed a similar thing, too)
No, a python shell in every Ubuntu/Mint/Debian isn't the same, nor coding stdio.h applications in the console. You could as well say Windows comes with development tools because there's the Windows Scripting Host.
Coding some web stuff in notepad is doable, but do you really want to do that?
About the browser itself, it is too late. Back in the days of Firefox 3.0 and Chrome 1, the browser-as-a-platform was already there and the good old days of static HTML and