24 replies to this topic

[TheNut]

Firefox is finally cracking down on their code and will soon release an official 4.0. The IE team is supposedly releasing 9.0 this Monday, so I guess it's Mozilla's turn to bake a cake for the IE team after they received a nice one from them back when FF3 released :)




The 4.0 RC is pretty solid. Clean look and feel, and of course full of HTML 5 goodness. Certain web pages finally scroll smoothly now, which in itself is worthy of a version number. It's going to be an interesting year for web devs, and especially for game devs.

Here's a quick 'n dirty WebGL propaganda demo I made for FF. Might spruce it up with a couple surprises and post it to chromeexperiments.com :lol:

[Mihail121]

Firefox is the worst browser I've ever experienced. Firefox' code is the worst piece of development effort I've ever seen and worked with in my life. Praising Firefox is praising the devil. Never thought I would say that, but IE9 is neat and clean and fast. I work in/with Chrome. I know what's going on inside Chrome, it's so fast. It's actually also usable. Oh, wait, almost non-existent RAM footprint.

[.oisyn]

I'm with Mihail. FireFox has had it's days, but they are long gone now. Completely overtaken by Chrome, and soon by IE9.

.edit: that reminds me, Chrome 10 was released recently, I have to update

[Nerd_Skywalker]

Chromium :D

[imerso]

Chrome rulez! And Chrome supports WebGL by some time now. =)

[TheNut]

I don't doubt for a minute the code in FF is garbage (most open source software is), but every browser has their perks and probs. The plugin repository for Firefox is where the browser shines.

Firefox is still popular according to here and here, so I'm not the only devil worshiper :)

[.oisyn]

Well obviously. People didn't change overnight from IE to FF. Still a lot of people are using IE6 and 7. Likewise, people will not change overnight from FF to Chrome or IE9

[Mihail121]

TheNut said:

I don't doubt for a minute the code in FF is garbage (most open source software is), but every browser has their perks and probs. The plugin repository for Firefox is where the browser shines.

Firefox is still popular according to here and here, so I'm not the only devil worshiper :)

I won't argue, Twilight is also quite popular just as Justin B. Firefox once gave an alternative to IE. People loved it, but sadly it became a bloat. Then came Chrome with every feature I need, easy sync and a stylistic touch.

[Kenneth Gorking]

I read a comparison between the two, and apparently, they are pretty even: http://www.conceivab...-the-first-duel

[touch_the_sky]

...

[stodge]

I'm developing an SVG based web application at work; Firefox 3.6.x is vastly slower than Chrome. Significantly so! The Firefox 4 beta didn't improve things.

[imerso]

Chrome is not only fast, but its interface is simple and effective -- it just does what it's expected to do -- browse the web -- fast. And it loads itself fast. And searching directly from the address bar is incredibly handy. My current favorite by far.

[alphadog]

Mihail121 said:

Firefox is the worst browser I've ever experienced. Firefox' code is the worst piece of development effort I've ever seen and worked with in my life.

Based on what? Have you scanned the FF source yourself and are able to comment?

My user experience has been fine, and the wealth of plugins make it even better. Never crashed. Now, Chrome has always had the faster experience, but its code is probably no better. They had to patch their WebKit (FOSS project used in Safari and Chrome) for a serious flaw after Pwn2Own. Firefox survived too, BTW.

TheNut said:

the code in FF is garbage (most open source software is)

I really wonder where you guys get this. Most FOSS projects with a big following and an actual history are probably better than most similar proprietary code.

[Mihail121]

alphadog said:

Based on what? Have you scanned the FF source yourself and are able to comment?

My user experience has been fine, and the wealth of plugins make it even better. Never crashed. Now, Chrome has always had the faster experience, but its code is probably no better. They had to patch their WebKit (FOSS project used in Safari and Chrome) for a serious flaw after Pwn2Own. Firefox survived too, BTW.

Why, yes I have, thanks for asking, I'm almost forced to work with it every day and know my around. Or do you really believe I would give it the price of worst example of badly written and maintained source code based on nothing? We developers also wish for "usability in development"...

Just by the way, why are you defending it?! Why are you defending a browser using nearest-neighbor to scale images?? Look at your calender, especially the year-part, it's 2011.

[alphadog]

Mihail121 said:

Just by the way, why are you defending it?! Why are you defending a browser using nearest-neighbor to scale images?? Look at your calender, especially the year-part, it's 2011.

Not defending it, just wondering what you can state are the most atrocious parts. Saying "it's the worst evar!" without substantiation is lame. And, if "nearest neighbor" is your biggest complaint about FF...

For the record, I use a mix of Chrome and FF. Old habits die hard, and Chrome has not had some key plugins I've used in FF till recently. Between Webkit's daily security flaws and Google's nature to be so invasive, it's like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire...

[TheNut]

alphadog said:

I really wonder where you guys get this. Most FOSS projects with a big following and an actual history are probably better than most similar proprietary code.

- We just spew out BS and hope nobody asks questions :lol:

Seriously though, I've dug into numerous open source projects such as Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, MySQL, and numerous libraries and apps for Linux. It's amazing the number of compile issues and serious warnings I run into. Some times I just have to fix a portion of the code, other times I've had to rewrite several methods (FFMPEG). When I look at the code structure, it is really sloppy and poorly organized. No commenting, in some cases the code appears to be deliberately obfuscated, and in one case I remember important compile configuration parameters were not even being respected. Chrome is no exception to this either. The fact that Google uses their own build tools and with a 1 gig repository speaks volumes of how bad that is. It's poorly organized IMO.

Proprietary software is no better, so I won't glorify them either. There is however the potential for disciplinary action against bad coding habits in the workforce where there is virtually none with open source.

[alphadog]

TheNut said:

Proprietary software is no better, so I won't glorify them either. There is however the potential for disciplinary action against bad coding habits in the workforce where there is virtually none with open source.

But, that's my point. IMO, from what I have seen over the years, proprietary code is no better, nor any worse, on average.

You've seen someone disciplined for "bad code"? Really?!? Wow, I'd love to hear that story. It's like someone seeing the Sasquatch!

In my experience, if it ships with minimal impact on support, it's considered "good" in most commercial settings.

Lots of code can get fixed in FOSS in way not available in proprietary. Hell, you just admitted to making your own fixes!

[TheNut]

In school they call it detention. In the workforce, they call it overtime :lol:

[Mihail121]

The absolutely most readable source code ever is in my eyes that of the great epic game Seven Kingdoms 2: The Frythan Wars.

[moe]

alphadog said:

You've seen someone disciplined for "bad code"? Really?!? Wow, I'd love to hear that story.

Does extra work count as being disciplined?
In my current workplace in the beginning, my supervisor made code reviews. If he was not satisfied I had to rewrite the code. Not exactly like being disciplined, but pretty close. He was quite picky about it. At first it was annoying but in hindsight it was very helpful and the source code did get more readable and cleaner. It pays of if you work in a team...