Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: fyi: point - counterpoint on mozilla:
Author: Zac Posted: 8/3/2000; 10:11:10 AM Topic: fyi: point - counterpoint on mozilla: Msg #: 19440 (In response to 19424) Prev/Next: 19439 / 19441
A few problems with the "counterpoint" articleExamples cited by Mr. Manley, such as e-mail and XUL, are not frills.
But they are. An email client is a total waste. As has been pointed out here a more useful feature would have been integration with existing emai lclients instead ifre-inventing the wheel and including yet another email client.
XUL is certainly a nice addition but holding up releasing a product and forcing a non standfard UI on Mac and Windows users so that people can skin their browser is laughable. Yes, I know that XUL can do some very great things but what percent of the user base is going to use XUL and what percent will jsut want to use a stable, fast browser?
The Mozilla team has built a huge (in terms of function and scope) product in a very short time.
A huge product that still hasn't shipped.
The author also lists a series of accomplishments that the team should justifiably be proud of. As individual technologies. But that doesn't change the fact that the product hasn't shipped, isn't in a form that is usable by most users and will finally ship with a series of utilities that most people won't use.
I have my own email client. I have my own newsreader. And I don't want to have to learn XUL in order to modify the UI in my browser. This isn't anything new...these complaints have been around since Netscape first started adding useless fetures to their browser as a way of avoiding doing anything innovative. And yet all this seems to have escaped the developers in the Mozilla project.
I don't know who first coined the comment about "adult supervision" but it is certainly apt. The project has a great st of technologies but seems to have forgotten the base idea...releasing a fast, stable browser that users will actually use.
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