Mozilla Introduces Browser-Based WebIDE 132
mpicpp (3454017) writes with word that Mozilla released a full development environment integrated into Firefox (available now in nightly builds). From the announcement:
Developers tell us that they are not sure how to start app development on the Web, with so many different tools and templates that they need to download from a variety of different sources. We’re solving that problem with WebIDE, built directly into Firefox. Instead of starting from zero we provide you with a functioning blueprint app with the click of a button. You then have all the tools you need to start creating your own app based on a solid foundation. WebIDE helps you create, edit, and test a new Web application right from your browser. It lets you install and test apps on Firefox OS devices and simulators and integrates the Firefox Developer Tools for seamless debugging and inspection across those devices. This is a first step towards debugging across various platforms and devices over WiFi using open remote debugging APIs.
The default editor is based on CodeMirror, but the protocol for interacting with the IDE is open and support for other editors (Emacs anyone?) should appear soon.
IPE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IPE (Score:2, Insightful)
But does it run Emacs?
Bloat !!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh ffs. Firefox is supposed to be a browser. Put the web IDE in it's own product. This is going to introduce yet more attack vectors and bugs into the code.
Firefox *really* needs forking to follow the original vision. Make a fast, lean, controllable web BROWSER. Not a bloody operating system. Not a bloody IDE, not a bloody whizz bang collection of crud.
Developers suck. They get something to a good point and every single time they tinker and fiddle leading to bloated, unusable, resource hungry, insecure crap.
Re:Antitrust...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that.
Re:Bloat !!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
So the WebIDE is bundled into every download of FF, but at same time they are moving every single feature a normal browser user uses into extensions or at most, into "about:config" -ui?!! I now have a one extension which provides the "hide tabs when one tab is open" -functionality, another to move tabs below the address-bar and to hide the other Australis-crap. Likely there will be need for yet another extension on FF 31, but the dev tools used by ~0,000001% of the FF userbase are always included. Great.
Mozilla II (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla.org is very quickly expanding Firefox to becoming Mozilla II. Remember when the suite was split apart into its various components, leaving Firefox a very lightweight-but-extensible browser, and Thunderbird a lean and mean yet also expandable email client, and if you still wanted the monolithic build you downloaded Mozilla instead?
Not any more. Firefox is very quickly edging its way toward becoming a heavyweight web development suite again. I think if users want that, they will either install the Web Developer extension or maybe just go straight to installing the Mozilla suite. Why are they "bloating" Firefox again instead of making the IDE an optional add-on via extensions?
Re:Mozilla II (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the people that run Mozilla seem to have no idea what Firefox users actually want. That's the only explanation I can come up with for what they've been doing.
Re:Bloat !!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you sure? Because I'd swear that all the stuff they have been removing lately is stuff related to it being a browser. You know, all the things that we get told we need to install an ad-on for. And of course we already know that the next version is going to break that ad-on once again.
Firefox, the development environment. With the option to install a bunch of ad-ons that turns it into a browser.
Re:Bloat !!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a petition from a few thousand old developers that want Microsoft to restart VB6 development, despite how godawful that is.
Developers sucking has no restriction on new vs old.
Re:Bloat !!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
decouple and load dynamically with minimal impact (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we would all agree that code bloat goes beyond web browsers, it's a problem for every piece of software, a problem from the future, waiting to happen, somewhere there along the development timeline, when someone with insufficient life wisdom decides for yet another feature, and as features become less related to the core functionality of the original product, the code bloat becomes more of a nuisance.
Since the psychology of developers can hardly be changed fast, especially the inexperienced ones (wisdom does not equal competency here - you can contribute to libevent, but not have a clue about the kind of wisdom I am talking about), I think another solution is necessary.
This solution is to at least try to decouple the features from the core product in such a way that these do not impair loading and runtime times, can be distributed/added/removed separately and generally do not impact the core product. Dynamic library loading, etc - all these things can be used with good measure to combat perceived bloat. But we still need to educate each other on these things.
The good and related principle of high-cohesion low-coupling should also be applied.
My point is, in itself, a gazillion addons is not a problem, as long as a person not wanting one single addon can use the product to their satisfaction where mere existence of plugin/addon/dev-IDE system does not impact his experience negatively. And it shouldn't - if you can load libraries on demand, you can decouple the IDE from Firefox, so that people who never heard of it or do not want it, can live in blissful ignorance of its mere existence.