3 ms·

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

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.

3 ms·

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

by pedrocr 6y ago

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.