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Thank you for the kind words. To clarify: I am still at Mozilla! But I will be working fully on Firefox for the foreseeable future. I have edited the opening p

Thank you for the kind words. To clarify: I am still at Mozilla! But I will be working fully on Firefox for the foreseeable future. I have edited the opening paragraph of the post to make this clearer.

__s 6y ago
Glad to hear, as someone who continues to use Firefox it's reassuring to know we'll continue to benefit from your skills
qzw 6y ago
Rust's loss is Firefox's gain. I'm sorry to see you leave your Rust work, but I think Mozilla is right to have their best engineers focus on their core product. If we hope to see Firefox survive and remain relevant, then Mozilla really needed to refocus their energies onto it. Also, I assume someone of Nicholas's caliber has a great deal of agency over their own career path, so perhaps a return to Firefox is not entirely unwelcomed by him.
- Ygg2 6y ago
  I'd honestly rather see Rust survive, than Mozilla. Mozilla is few years away from going Blink, and on deathbed. Rust is up and coming language.
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    I'd like to see Mozilla focus on Firefox, so that there it remains a viable alternative to Blink-based browsers for as long as possible. I think that may yet become really important as the effects of the incredible dominance of Google in the WWW become more apparent. I'd also like to see the Rust ecosystem prosper, but I guess others can take up the slack, it is gaining considerable momentum and quite a few places are looking into it, or using it already. If that isn't possible, is there much hope for it anyway?
  - pedrocr 6y ago
    While I'd begrudgingly agree the two are not independent. I moved back to Firefox from Chrome exactly because Firefox became once again performance competitive thanks to Quantum. Most (all?) the big Firefox improvements were integrations of Rust code pioneered in servo. The only chance I see for Firefox is doubling down on that and replacing more and more components with those Rust rewrites. If not for that I don't see Firefox remaining competitive with Chrome for long.
    - Ygg2 6y ago
      Didn't Mozilla like fire all of their Rust devs? There is no plans for supporting Rust in Firefox AFAIK.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        There already is Rust in Firefox and has been for years.
        Ygg2 6y ago
        True, but not what parent is saying. > The only chance I see for Firefox is doubling down on that and replacing more and more components with those Rust rewrites If Firefox has no more Rust developers now, it can't "double down" on replacing components, and all software is prone to bitrot, so after a few years, it will be an unmaintainable, buggy mess.
        steveklabnik 6y ago
        Mozilla can still use Rust even if they don't pay people to work on Rust. The vast, vast majority of users do exactly that. My understanding is that there is still plans for more Rust in Firefox.
        nnethercote 6y ago
        I think there is confusion here over the meaning of "Rust developer". Mozilla did lay off most of its employees that were working directly on the Rust language and its implementation. This was a handful of people. Mozilla also laid off some employees that were using Rust, such as the Servo team. But Mozilla still has plenty of employees that know and use Rust, both in Firefox (e.g. the WebRender team), and in code relating to Firefox such as services. This is a much larger number of people.
agumonkey 6y ago
I still remember your blog entries about chasing memory use in firefox before quantum :)
exmozilla 6y ago
Glad you're still there. I had 10 years of time with Mozilla but was let go with the layoffs. First contribution was 20 years ago. From the folks I still stay in touch with morale is at an all time low but I hope Firefox recovers.

__s 6y ago

Glad to hear, as someone who continues to use Firefox it's reassuring to know we'll continue to benefit from your skills

qzw 6y ago

Rust's loss is Firefox's gain. I'm sorry to see you leave your Rust work, but I think Mozilla is right to have their best engineers focus on their core product. If we hope to see Firefox survive and remain relevant, then Mozilla really needed to refocus their energies onto it. Also, I assume someone of Nicholas's caliber has a great deal of agency over their own career path, so perhaps a return to Firefox is not entirely unwelcomed by him.

Ygg2 6y ago
I'd honestly rather see Rust survive, than Mozilla. Mozilla is few years away from going Blink, and on deathbed. Rust is up and coming language.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  I'd like to see Mozilla focus on Firefox, so that there it remains a viable alternative to Blink-based browsers for as long as possible. I think that may yet become really important as the effects of the incredible dominance of Google in the WWW become more apparent. I'd also like to see the Rust ecosystem prosper, but I guess others can take up the slack, it is gaining considerable momentum and quite a few places are looking into it, or using it already. If that isn't possible, is there much hope for it anyway?
- pedrocr 6y ago
  While I'd begrudgingly agree the two are not independent. I moved back to Firefox from Chrome exactly because Firefox became once again performance competitive thanks to Quantum. Most (all?) the big Firefox improvements were integrations of Rust code pioneered in servo. The only chance I see for Firefox is doubling down on that and replacing more and more components with those Rust rewrites. If not for that I don't see Firefox remaining competitive with Chrome for long.
  - Ygg2 6y ago
    Didn't Mozilla like fire all of their Rust devs? There is no plans for supporting Rust in Firefox AFAIK.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      There already is Rust in Firefox and has been for years.
      - Ygg2 6y ago
        True, but not what parent is saying. > The only chance I see for Firefox is doubling down on that and replacing more and more components with those Rust rewrites If Firefox has no more Rust developers now, it can't "double down" on replacing components, and all software is prone to bitrot, so after a few years, it will be an unmaintainable, buggy mess.
        steveklabnik 6y ago
        Mozilla can still use Rust even if they don't pay people to work on Rust. The vast, vast majority of users do exactly that. My understanding is that there is still plans for more Rust in Firefox.
        nnethercote 6y ago
        I think there is confusion here over the meaning of "Rust developer". Mozilla did lay off most of its employees that were working directly on the Rust language and its implementation. This was a handful of people. Mozilla also laid off some employees that were using Rust, such as the Servo team. But Mozilla still has plenty of employees that know and use Rust, both in Firefox (e.g. the WebRender team), and in code relating to Firefox such as services. This is a much larger number of people.

agumonkey 6y ago

I still remember your blog entries about chasing memory use in firefox before quantum :)

exmozilla 6y ago

Glad you're still there. I had 10 years of time with Mozilla but was let go with the layoffs. First contribution was 20 years ago. From the folks I still stay in touch with morale is at an all time low but I hope Firefox recovers.