6 ms·

This should be a separate tool. An add-on, or whatever, but it shouldn't be bundled with the browser. If you think about it, it doesn't make much sense. Do you

This should be a separate tool. An add-on, or whatever, but it shouldn't be bundled with the browser. If you think about it, it doesn't make much sense. Do you see audio mixing/mastering or video editing software being bundled with media players? Or do you see word processors/TeX IDEs bundled with PDF viewers? No, because you wanted to play your Black Sabbath .mp3, or read a .pdf scientific paper. If you wanted to record your Black Sabbath tribute band and produce the recording, you'd get a digital audio workstation. If you wanted to write your own scientific paper, you'd get a TeX bundle. If you wanted to develop web apps, you'd want to download an IDE. Not use a web browser. A vast, vast majority of people downloading Firefox wants to just look at damn web pages. The ones who want to make them are welcome to get dedicated software. Developers of that separate program for web dev could then go crazy and add a lot of features that wouldn't be possible so easily if it was bundled in a browser. Everyone wins. So why this? No one is being done a favor by bundling a web IDE with a browser. A bullshit token reason like "it's easier for novices" will not qualify.

applecore 12y ago
The democratization of the web gives people who have been consumers the ability to be creators. The tools of creation belong in everyone's hands.
- nfoz 12y ago
  Yes but they don't all need to be exactly a single tool, a single process! Just like I really don't want a web browser in my file manager / operating system / text editor.... wait all of that already happened. sigh.
- sigzero 12y ago
  And? That doesn't mean it cannot be a plugin.
  - asadotzler 12y ago
    If view source had been a developer plug-in in the 90's, I'll bet there would be a lot fewer web developers today.
  - mikeratcliffe 12y ago
    If it was an extension we would lose stability because our devtools have unit tests that test against every Firefox change.
leeoniya 12y ago
i've had this thought for quite some time about a lot of the standards/features being implemented into the core. many of these cool things can/should be done as addons. it may make sense to bake them in for Firefox OS, but not for the standalone browser.
ben0x539 12y ago
I vaguely agree with you but I think comparisons with media players and text editors sell short how central web browsers are to computer use these days.
gress 12y ago
I strongly disagree. Just because economics have temporarily separated the means of creation from the means of consumption in some domains, there is no reason that they should not be recombined now that it can be done freely. Why shouldn't all systems be programmable?
- thegeomaster 12y ago
  Sorry, but this looks like you're attacking a straw man. I never said that "not all systems should be programmable". My actual belief is, as a matter of fact, completely opposed to that. What I'm saying is that you do and will for a long time need a degree of technical expertise to develop webpages. The gap is shrinking, but will exist for at least quite some time. I'm not being an elitist, just real. The technical expertise needed to browse even the most complex websites versus the one needed to put together even the simplest ones is far smaller. Why would putting this Web IDE into an add-on ever accent the border between creation and consumption? It's good to have software with a single responsibility. All other things equal, Mozilla's Firefox division can maintain a web browser without an IDE better than they can a browser with an IDE. If Mozilla was to develop an IDE, it would be easier to split it into a separate piece of software (say an add-on) and dedicate another, different development team to work on it. That would be another program with a single responsibility. This is vaguely reminiscent of the Unix way, and I'm very respectable of it, for the main reason that it's aligned with my personal philosophy (KISS), but also because it was able to create and sustain such a big community founded on openness and contributions and not driven by profit margins and managers in suits.
  - asadotzler 12y ago
    "What I'm saying is that you do and will for a long time need a degree of technical expertise to develop webpages." This is simply wrong. I was writing web pages with very little technical ability starting way back in 1996 because view source was built in and not an add-on and that made it easy to learn without any technical expertise. Today the web platform is richer and so it makes good sense for the view source of today to also be richer.
logn 12y ago
Every browser already ships "developer tools" for inspecting and debugging webpages. And you can already use those tools to rewrite the pages. I see this as the next step of that. And audio or word processing tools are less related to the web than this IDE. I agree that I don't see the harm in making this an Add-on instead. Anyhow browsers are the new operating systems, and Firefox has a development IDE bundled.
- alxndr 12y ago
  Chrome has an option where you can save your edited JS back to the file system; it also feels like another step along this path. I also think that including dev tools and even an IDE like this in a browser are fundamentally different from including a mail or calendar client in a browser.
phkahler 12y ago
"Do you see audio mixing/mastering or video editing software being bundled with media players? Or do you see word processors/TeX IDEs bundled with PDF viewers? " No, and that's a problem. Do you see programming languages shipped with every computer? No, but that's how it used to be. Most shipped with BASIC while Unix shipped with C. I guess Macs come with Python, but just CLI no IDE - not even idle. Is there some reason not to ship development tools? Do you not want the curious to have ready access to dig in and understand the stuff they use every day?
- fidotron 12y ago
  They won't though. All you see in web dev tools is the UI as all the actual clever stuff is still hidden away from you on servers.
  - mercer 12y ago
    With an increase of client-side apps combined with server api's this is less the case, though, isn't it? I can imagine quite a few 'web apps' that won't try to actively obfuscate how their client app operates. In those cases having browser-based development tools makes it much easier to tinker with and inspect the app...
  - findjashua 12y ago
    Well, with most single-page apps, bulk of the logic is running on the client, with the backend just exposing a REST API.
- thegeomaster 12y ago
  The curious won't be perplexed by such a simple barrier. They'd find this Web IDE, had it been an add-on, and happily continue exploring. Is that little convenience enough to justify bloating an executable millions of people use daily with a lot of code that only 5% of them (a very generous estimate) will ever use? We should be splitting software into smaller components, and let the user choose what they need. There's no need to pander to lazy or unwilling-to-learn users by barfing up all they need into a single binary, thereby adding stuff most of the people won't ever use.
gdulli 12y ago
I agree. I'd be happy with launching firefox in a more lightweight non-web-dev mode for everyday browsing and then web-dev mode with all the extra tools and UI elements. The cool thing about that would be that the developer tools could be more tightly integrated with the UI because they wouldn't have to be hidden from the majority of people who would never need them.
- Excavator 12y ago
  You can use Profiles¹ for that sort of stuff. about:config² is good for a somewhat complete list of components that can be enabled/disabled. 1: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... 2: about:config?filter=.enabled
  - canuckistani 12y ago
    See also the profilist extension: * https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profilist https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profilist
toyg 12y ago
We've gone full circle: Firefox/Phoenix was born as a way to separate the browser from (guess what) html-authoring, email, calendaring etc, which used to be "the same program" aka Netscape Communicator / Mozilla Suite. The split basically killed off most of the orphaned components. Now Mozilla are busy rebuilding an html-authoring tool and packing it into the browser. I bet messaging will follow.
- Svip 12y ago
  Psst! They call the suite SeaMonkey today.
- nandhp 12y ago
  > messaging will follow Messaging is already here. Except it's called the Social Service API. For example, there are two Facebook Services. You can go (right now) to the Mozilla Social Service Activations Portal, select Facebook Share, and click "Activate now": https://activations.cdn.mozilla.net/en-US/facebook.html https://activations.cdn.mozilla.net/en-US/facebook.html [Requires a Facebook account] There used to also be a Facebook Messenger Service, but that appears to be gone for some reason: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-facebook-messenger-firefox-work https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-facebook-messe... There's developer documentation here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Social_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/So...
hrjet 12y ago
Moreover, adding more functionality to an application increases the surface area for attack. Adding it by default increases the risk for everyone.
yeukhon 12y ago
Modularity is a great idea, but modularity isn't always a solution. Sometimes, tight, monolithic integration is better, for both developers and end user. As an example, some companies have a single source tree with every project. Why the hell would they do that? Make 100 repos on github is better - you know which repo is which repo. Maintenance and usage headache. > A vast, vast majority of people downloading Firefox wants to just look at damn web pages. So why bundle dev tools in the first place? Remove dev tools will definitely slim firefox's size and memory footprint. Forget about error logging (null them); if you are developer just install addon so you can pipe the errors. That's better! Lightweight browser for the rest of the non-developer user! Win! Of course that won't work for Mozilla. They are not interested in maintain two separate set of builds. I am not going to do that for my software either. It's a lot of work. > If you wanted to develop web apps, you'd want to download an IDE. Not use a web browser.v Nope. I can do this with Word, python -m SimpleHTTPServer, and a web browser to write code, test code and see code in live action. Why I don't do that and use an IDE or vim? Because of convenience. Firefox has a feature called scratchpad. See [1], and the point is that you can experiment your javascript code without having to squeeze your code into the console. It also reduces the headache of copy-paste code back and forth between console and some other places (you can't save your console code, so where do you get the code? Some file!) I wrote one add-on and the workflow is awful. See [2]. I wish I could write add-on in scratchpad without having to repeat those steps and can see error immediately by a click on scratchpad. Maybe scratchpad has this feature I am not aware of... The point is, I hate to switch back and forth between the browser, my vim terminal and the web console. [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/devtools/2011/08/15/introducing-scratchpad/ https://blog.mozilla.org/devtools/2011/08/15/introducing-scr... [2]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/Getting_started#Developing_without_cfx_run https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/Ge... > A bullshit token reason like "it's easier for novices" will not qualify. No this is not bullshit, because developers are users and some users turn into developers BECAUSE they poke around tools available to them.
- kyllo 12y ago
  Nope. I can do this with Word, python -m SimpleHTTPServer, and a web browser to write code, test code and see code in live action. Wait, what is Word being used for, in this process?

applecore 12y ago

The democratization of the web gives people who have been consumers the ability to be creators. The tools of creation belong in everyone's hands.

nfoz 12y ago
Yes but they don't all need to be exactly a single tool, a single process! Just like I really don't want a web browser in my file manager / operating system / text editor.... wait all of that already happened. sigh.
sigzero 12y ago
And? That doesn't mean it cannot be a plugin.
- asadotzler 12y ago
  If view source had been a developer plug-in in the 90's, I'll bet there would be a lot fewer web developers today.
- mikeratcliffe 12y ago
  If it was an extension we would lose stability because our devtools have unit tests that test against every Firefox change.

leeoniya 12y ago

i've had this thought for quite some time about a lot of the standards/features being implemented into the core. many of these cool things can/should be done as addons. it may make sense to bake them in for Firefox OS, but not for the standalone browser.

ben0x539 12y ago

I vaguely agree with you but I think comparisons with media players and text editors sell short how central web browsers are to computer use these days.

gress 12y ago

I strongly disagree. Just because economics have temporarily separated the means of creation from the means of consumption in some domains, there is no reason that they should not be recombined now that it can be done freely. Why shouldn't all systems be programmable?

thegeomaster 12y ago
Sorry, but this looks like you're attacking a straw man. I never said that "not all systems should be programmable". My actual belief is, as a matter of fact, completely opposed to that. What I'm saying is that you do and will for a long time need a degree of technical expertise to develop webpages. The gap is shrinking, but will exist for at least quite some time. I'm not being an elitist, just real. The technical expertise needed to browse even the most complex websites versus the one needed to put together even the simplest ones is far smaller. Why would putting this Web IDE into an add-on ever accent the border between creation and consumption? It's good to have software with a single responsibility. All other things equal, Mozilla's Firefox division can maintain a web browser without an IDE better than they can a browser with an IDE. If Mozilla was to develop an IDE, it would be easier to split it into a separate piece of software (say an add-on) and dedicate another, different development team to work on it. That would be another program with a single responsibility. This is vaguely reminiscent of the Unix way, and I'm very respectable of it, for the main reason that it's aligned with my personal philosophy (KISS), but also because it was able to create and sustain such a big community founded on openness and contributions and not driven by profit margins and managers in suits.
- asadotzler 12y ago
  "What I'm saying is that you do and will for a long time need a degree of technical expertise to develop webpages." This is simply wrong. I was writing web pages with very little technical ability starting way back in 1996 because view source was built in and not an add-on and that made it easy to learn without any technical expertise. Today the web platform is richer and so it makes good sense for the view source of today to also be richer.

logn 12y ago

Every browser already ships "developer tools" for inspecting and debugging webpages. And you can already use those tools to rewrite the pages. I see this as the next step of that. And audio or word processing tools are less related to the web than this IDE. I agree that I don't see the harm in making this an Add-on instead. Anyhow browsers are the new operating systems, and Firefox has a development IDE bundled.

alxndr 12y ago
Chrome has an option where you can save your edited JS back to the file system; it also feels like another step along this path. I also think that including dev tools and even an IDE like this in a browser are fundamentally different from including a mail or calendar client in a browser.

phkahler 12y ago

"Do you see audio mixing/mastering or video editing software being bundled with media players? Or do you see word processors/TeX IDEs bundled with PDF viewers? " No, and that's a problem. Do you see programming languages shipped with every computer? No, but that's how it used to be. Most shipped with BASIC while Unix shipped with C. I guess Macs come with Python, but just CLI no IDE - not even idle. Is there some reason not to ship development tools? Do you not want the curious to have ready access to dig in and understand the stuff they use every day?

fidotron 12y ago
They won't though. All you see in web dev tools is the UI as all the actual clever stuff is still hidden away from you on servers.
- mercer 12y ago
  With an increase of client-side apps combined with server api's this is less the case, though, isn't it? I can imagine quite a few 'web apps' that won't try to actively obfuscate how their client app operates. In those cases having browser-based development tools makes it much easier to tinker with and inspect the app...
- findjashua 12y ago
  Well, with most single-page apps, bulk of the logic is running on the client, with the backend just exposing a REST API.
thegeomaster 12y ago
The curious won't be perplexed by such a simple barrier. They'd find this Web IDE, had it been an add-on, and happily continue exploring. Is that little convenience enough to justify bloating an executable millions of people use daily with a lot of code that only 5% of them (a very generous estimate) will ever use? We should be splitting software into smaller components, and let the user choose what they need. There's no need to pander to lazy or unwilling-to-learn users by barfing up all they need into a single binary, thereby adding stuff most of the people won't ever use.

gdulli 12y ago

I agree. I'd be happy with launching firefox in a more lightweight non-web-dev mode for everyday browsing and then web-dev mode with all the extra tools and UI elements. The cool thing about that would be that the developer tools could be more tightly integrated with the UI because they wouldn't have to be hidden from the majority of people who would never need them.

Excavator 12y ago
You can use Profiles¹ for that sort of stuff. about:config² is good for a somewhat complete list of components that can be enabled/disabled. 1: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-... 2: about:config?filter=.enabled
- canuckistani 12y ago
  See also the profilist extension: * https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profilist https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profilist

toyg 12y ago

We've gone full circle: Firefox/Phoenix was born as a way to separate the browser from (guess what) html-authoring, email, calendaring etc, which used to be "the same program" aka Netscape Communicator / Mozilla Suite. The split basically killed off most of the orphaned components. Now Mozilla are busy rebuilding an html-authoring tool and packing it into the browser. I bet messaging will follow.

Svip 12y ago
Psst! They call the suite SeaMonkey today.
nandhp 12y ago
> messaging will follow Messaging is already here. Except it's called the Social Service API. For example, there are two Facebook Services. You can go (right now) to the Mozilla Social Service Activations Portal, select Facebook Share, and click "Activate now": https://activations.cdn.mozilla.net/en-US/facebook.html https://activations.cdn.mozilla.net/en-US/facebook.html [Requires a Facebook account] There used to also be a Facebook Messenger Service, but that appears to be gone for some reason: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-facebook-messenger-firefox-work https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-facebook-messe... There's developer documentation here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Social_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/So...

hrjet 12y ago

Moreover, adding more functionality to an application increases the surface area for attack. Adding it by default increases the risk for everyone.

yeukhon 12y ago

Modularity is a great idea, but modularity isn't always a solution. Sometimes, tight, monolithic integration is better, for both developers and end user. As an example, some companies have a single source tree with every project. Why the hell would they do that? Make 100 repos on github is better - you know which repo is which repo. Maintenance and usage headache. > A vast, vast majority of people downloading Firefox wants to just look at damn web pages. So why bundle dev tools in the first place? Remove dev tools will definitely slim firefox's size and memory footprint. Forget about error logging (null them); if you are developer just install addon so you can pipe the errors. That's better! Lightweight browser for the rest of the non-developer user! Win! Of course that won't work for Mozilla. They are not interested in maintain two separate set of builds. I am not going to do that for my software either. It's a lot of work. > If you wanted to develop web apps, you'd want to download an IDE. Not use a web browser.v Nope. I can do this with Word, python -m SimpleHTTPServer, and a web browser to write code, test code and see code in live action. Why I don't do that and use an IDE or vim? Because of convenience. Firefox has a feature called scratchpad. See [1], and the point is that you can experiment your javascript code without having to squeeze your code into the console. It also reduces the headache of copy-paste code back and forth between console and some other places (you can't save your console code, so where do you get the code? Some file!) I wrote one add-on and the workflow is awful. See [2]. I wish I could write add-on in scratchpad without having to repeat those steps and can see error immediately by a click on scratchpad. Maybe scratchpad has this feature I am not aware of... The point is, I hate to switch back and forth between the browser, my vim terminal and the web console. [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/devtools/2011/08/15/introducing-scratchpad/ https://blog.mozilla.org/devtools/2011/08/15/introducing-scr... [2]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/Getting_started#Developing_without_cfx_run https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/Ge... > A bullshit token reason like "it's easier for novices" will not qualify. No this is not bullshit, because developers are users and some users turn into developers BECAUSE they poke around tools available to them.

kyllo 12y ago
Nope. I can do this with Word, python -m SimpleHTTPServer, and a web browser to write code, test code and see code in live action. Wait, what is Word being used for, in this process?