4 ms·
Ironically Mozilla is the best counter-example to that Joel on Software article. The article specifically mentions that Netscape shouldn't try and re-write the
by adrianmsmith 10y ago
Ironically Mozilla is the best counter-example to that Joel on Software article.
The article specifically mentions that Netscape shouldn't try and re-write their browser. But if they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have Firefox. We'd still have an incremental improvement over Netscape 4.7.
For those who can't remember Netscape 4.7, let me remind you, it wasn't very good at the end. If they hadn't rewritten it, causing Joel to write that article to tell them they were wrong, there would be no relevant browser called Firefox today.
- rerx 10y agoNetscape as a company owned by AOL pretty much died during the process of the rewrite. Although parts lived on in the Mozilla foundation.
- daenney 10y agoThen again, Gecko itself started under Netscape, they just released it under an open license after the Mozilla thing was started. So in a sense it's still an incremental improvement over Netscape 4.7, at least when it comes to the rendering engine.
- aduitsis 10y agoThe complete rewrite wasn't initially too good either. It took them years to bring it on par with Netscape 4.7, warts and all. I've been in a talk of a mozilla developer like a decade or more ago, shortly after they had released the rewrite. His comment on starting a project like that from scratch: "don't". What they intend to do (slowly and gradually transition to Servo) seems consistent with an organization that has learned from this experience.
- yuhong 10y agoAh, the "Mariner" cancellation debacle.