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In that alternate reality, there would be no Rust and no Servo, which would mean there would be no Firefox Quantum (as well as no ripgrep, fd, exa, Parity, etc.
by pcwalton 9y ago
In that alternate reality, there would be no Rust and no Servo, which would mean there would be no Firefox Quantum (as well as no ripgrep, fd, exa, Parity, etc.)
- fooker 9y agoRust and Servo doesn't have much to do with Firefox 57/Quantum, it is still mostly Gecko inside.
- chrismorgan 9y agoFollowing pcwalton’s line of thought: in that alternative reality, Firefox would be doomed, because it would be stuck where it is, unable to leapfrog the competition and eternally playing catch-up, and falling steadily further and further behind. In Firefox 57 the CSS engine is the only part that’s been replaced, but the Quantum project is a lot more than that—integrating Stylo is just the beginning. WebRender, for example, is basically about fixing rendering issues once and for all, including things like making it possible to switch tabs instantly. (There’s a video floating round of holding down Ctrl+Tab and having it render each tab completely as it rapidly cycles through them. In that alternative reality, this could never happen.)
- pcwalton 9y agoI was present for the initial Quantum discussions. The entire idea behind Quantum was to integrate the most mature part of Research's work into Firefox on a short time frame. Without that impetus, it's pretty safe to say there wouldn't have been a Quantum.
- fooker 9y agoYou do not contradict my point though.