The other integrated components of the Mozilla application suite, Calendar, Chatzilla, and Composer (the HTML editor application), are not going away, either. We're not sure yet how they'll evolve -- whether they'll become standalone toolkit applications (and if so, based on which XUL toolkit), or popular add-ons to Phoenix (if so, they will need to use its new XUL toolkit).
Yes, the article summary is wrong. Mozilla Firebird still is the name of the product until Mozilla version 1.4 is released. Read my many posts above for still further clarification.
Throwing away the all good publicity mozilla-the-browser has gathered by choosing a new name always did seem an odd sort of move.
The name Firebird was chosen because there were legal problems with the Phoenix name. The new name was needed so that a new version of Phoenix/Firebird could be released. So Firebird was never a replacement name for the Mozilla Browser, just a replacement for Phoenix. After Mozilla 1.4 is released, the trunk will switch over to use Firebird/Thunderbird, so then there will be no confusion calling them Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail.
Note that the 1.4 release is scheduled less than a month away.
But the roadmap has not been updated to indicate that the 1.4 branch will have release candidates in preparation for a new stable branch to replace the 1.0 branch. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes several months for version 1.4 to be released, similar to what happened on the Mozilla 1.0 branch last year.
Yes, the old Mozilla Application Suite will eventually be no more. It will live on perhaps for a few years on the 1.4 branch, but the Mozilla trunk will change over to Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird after the 1.4 release. For more details, see the Mozilla Roadmap.
Firebird is still the name of the browser product for now. It's not just a codename. The new name was needed for legal reasons so they could release a new version of the browser.
It's not that simple. You have to specify certain DOCTYPEs (e.g. HTML 4.01 Strict) for Mozilla to use Standards mode instead of Quirks mode. However, Standards mode does not mean that Mozilla recognizes only valid HTML -- it only means that Mozilla follows the standards and the HTML standards say nothing about how to handle broken HTML. Mozilla will still try its best to make sense of tag soup in Standards mode.
If you want Mozilla to render only valid code, use XHTML with a proper MIME type. If the XHTML is not valid, Mozilla will display only an error message. But using XHTML with the proper MIME type will cause IE to display the XHTML code without rending it, so you can't do this for Internet accessible web pages.
I know this isn't exactly what you're asking for, but Checky is a Mozilla Plug-in that will validate the current page when you press F10. It won't help evangelism, but at least it makes it easier for web developers to generate valid HTML.
The other problem with the source viewer is that Mozilla goes to the server to grab the source, not using the exact source displayed on the screen if you're using dynamic server side variables (PHP), whereas IE gives you the source of whatever's in memory and displayed on the screen.
AFAIK, this bug was fixed ages ago. Have you tried a recent Mozilla build?
No, right now it's Mozilla vs. Camino vs. Safari. It will become Mozilla/Browser (formerly Phoenix) vs. Camino vs. Safari. It really isn't much different than the current situation -- the Mozilla camp is already split between XUL and native UIs.
In terms of standardization, it seems like C# is the odd man out, not Java. C was invented in the 70's and wasn't standardized until 1989. C++ was invented in the 80's and wasn't standardized until 1999. Java was invented in the 90's and we might expect it to be standardized in 2009.
For all practical purposes, Java is more standardized than C or C++ were when they were "standardized," in the sense that if you get a Java program working with one compiler, it will likely work with lots of other Java compilers. Just try that with C++, even today, four years after it was "standardized."
To me, the fact that C# is standardized and Java is not means nothing.
In your original post you blamed Mozilla for your problems. Now you're blaming decisions that others made. The one thing to remember about BS is to at least keep your story straight!
Better yet, just leave off the blaming part in your real-life stories and just stick to the facts.
Asa didn't mention one new major feature -- Windows builds now support NTLM authentication. This was the one blocker for lots of folks who wanted to run Mozilla at work. Eventually, other platforms will get NTLM, too.
This amount of modularity meant that you could build very complicated programs out of shell scripts, and only have the parts you were using in memory at any given time.
This philosophy works in some situations, but not all. A few months ago I helped my wife convert a shell script she was trying to use into Perl, and as a result it ran orders of magnitude faster. The original shell script was repeatedly reading a 1.5 GB file but my Perl program was able to read it only once.
The Mozilla/Phoenix/Minotaur approach gives the best of both worlds. If you want the monolithic version of the suite, you can use Mozilla. If you want the modular version, you can use Phoenix and Minotaur.
Here's the answer: if (Number.class.isAssignableFrom(x.getClass()))
I switched the Number.class and x.getClass() when I first wrote it, and actually wrote Integer.class instead of Number.class at first. Reflection code is not easy to get right!
Additionally, the instanceof test took about 40 nanoseconds and the reflection test took about 600 nanoseconds on my computer. Reflection code is about an order of magnitude slower, and about an order of magnitude harder to write.
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Right, that's why the product was known as Mozilla Firebird, not just Firebird.
Yes, the article summary is wrong. Mozilla Firebird still is the name of the product until Mozilla version 1.4 is released. Read my many posts above for still further clarification.
Yes, the old Mozilla Application Suite will eventually be no more. It will live on perhaps for a few years on the 1.4 branch, but the Mozilla trunk will change over to Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird after the 1.4 release. For more details, see the Mozilla Roadmap.
Firebird is still the name of the browser product for now. It's not just a codename. The new name was needed for legal reasons so they could release a new version of the browser.
Over a week ago, Asa pointed out that the Firebird name might not stick for more than a few months. In that post, he mentions Mozilla Browser as a possible name for the 1.5 release.
If you want Mozilla to render only valid code, use XHTML with a proper MIME type. If the XHTML is not valid, Mozilla will display only an error message. But using XHTML with the proper MIME type will cause IE to display the XHTML code without rending it, so you can't do this for Internet accessible web pages.
Take a look at Bug 6211 in Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6211
Try going to the URL about:config and changing the preference network.http.request.timeout to a large value.
If you try File | Edit Page in Mozilla, I think you're in for a big surprise!
I know this isn't exactly what you're asking for, but Checky is a Mozilla Plug-in that will validate the current page when you press F10. It won't help evangelism, but at least it makes it easier for web developers to generate valid HTML.
Ironically, that link doesn't work in Mozilla, because the server sends the wrong MIME type.
No, right now it's Mozilla vs. Camino vs. Safari. It will become Mozilla/Browser (formerly Phoenix) vs. Camino vs. Safari. It really isn't much different than the current situation -- the Mozilla camp is already split between XUL and native UIs.
That's what Camino, K-Meleon, and Galeon are for.
For all practical purposes, Java is more standardized than C or C++ were when they were "standardized," in the sense that if you get a Java program working with one compiler, it will likely work with lots of other Java compilers. Just try that with C++, even today, four years after it was "standardized."
To me, the fact that C# is standardized and Java is not means nothing.
Better yet, just leave off the blaming part in your real-life stories and just stick to the facts.
But it's so much easier to blame Mozilla than admit that you made a mistake!
Asa didn't mention one new major feature -- Windows builds now support NTLM authentication. This was the one blocker for lots of folks who wanted to run Mozilla at work. Eventually, other platforms will get NTLM, too.
With the right metamaterials, a cell phone would have a negative size. Who knows, maybe you could even answer calls before someone calls you!
The Mozilla/Phoenix/Minotaur approach gives the best of both worlds. If you want the monolithic version of the suite, you can use Mozilla. If you want the modular version, you can use Phoenix and Minotaur.
if (Number.class.isAssignableFrom(x.getClass()))
I switched the Number.class and x.getClass() when I first wrote it, and actually wrote Integer.class instead of Number.class at first. Reflection code is not easy to get right!
Additionally, the instanceof test took about 40 nanoseconds and the reflection test took about 600 nanoseconds on my computer. Reflection code is about an order of magnitude slower, and about an order of magnitude harder to write.