Mozilla hints at the imminent release of a browser aimed mainly at Web developers and employing experimental debugging and development tools
In a tersely worded announcement
that raises more questions than it provides answers, Mozilla has
announced the forthcoming launch of what it bills as "the first browser
dedicated to developers."
The first sneak peek of the browser, in a
20-second video clip, announces: "For November 10th, we unleashed the
Dev Tools team on the entire browser. We rethought how Firefox can debug
the whole Web. We're building something unique but familiar, and we
can't wait to share it."
Most of the hints Mozilla drops involve
the browser-level integration of a couple of tools that Mozilla has
promoted before as development aids. The first, WebIDE, was rolled out in June and
speeds the creation of Web applications from directly within a browser.
While WebIDE was originally devised for aiding the development of
Firefox OS apps, Mozilla confirmed it could be used to develop Web
applications of most any kind.
Another tool mentioned by Mozilla, the Firefox Tools Adapter,
is an experimental add-on that allows content running in other
browsers, such as Google Chrome, to be debugged with Firefox's Developer
Tools. One ostensible use for the Tools Adapter is for the
desktop-based remote debugging of browsers running on other platforms --
e.g., Chrome on Android, or Safari on iOS.
What's less clear is
how all of this will be aggregated into a single,
developer-centric package. One possibility -- albeit a remote one -- is
that Mozilla will debut the first in a line of browsers built using the Servo browser engine.
Servo was created by Mozilla to exploit modern multiore hardware, and
is written in Mozilla's Rust language, which is built for both speed and
type safety.
Rust is still a work in progress, and Mozilla has claimed Servo won't
be productized until at least 2015. But neither of those preclude the
possibility that Mozilla has produced a prototype that works as a
technology demonstration for both projects.
Whatever shape the
package takes, it seems clear Mozilla wants the end result to reflect
its ongoing mission to create Web technologies unencumbered by
proprietary designs. The teaser capped off with a promise to deliver "a
package that you deserve as a builder for an independent Web."
Source: http://www.infoworld.com
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