UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Discussions about the development and maturation of the platform code (UXP).
Warning: may contain highly-technical topics.

Moderators: trava90, athenian200

User avatar
Moonchild
Pale Moon guru
Pale Moon guru
Posts: 35402
Joined: 2011-08-28, 17:27
Location: Motala, SE
Contact:

UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-07-24, 09:20

In other words: we need your (community members') help for development.

Some time ago1 we've discussed2 our options going forward3 with Pale Moon, and from that we've landed now on our current implementation of the platform (UXP) and its individual applications building on it (Pale Moon, Basilisk, Borealis, Ice*-UXP, Ambassador, and various other forks, rebuilds and hack jobs).

When we made this decision, we knew it was going to be a difficult road, but with everyone involved in the community doing their best to help out and support the project, there was a very positive outlook to be able to provide the necessary technological implementation for what was to come -- that is, before it became clear that there was going to be a hard push for a full browser monoculture. I did state that there needed to be more involvement and support by the community even without that to stay ahead of the inevitable problems we ran into with Tycho.

But, as it looks now, that necessary involvement is not happening.
There seems to be growing complacency that we can be treated like other browser vendors out there that have hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fund however many paid developers to implement new or radically different technologies. But that is simply not true. It does not magically happen if you wait long enough. We do have a bounty program to incentivise help in development, but even that goes completely unused because people seem to be happy to just complain about the same known issues but not do anything about them.
That will, of course, lead to some consequences; the main one being that web compatibility will suffer. But compatibility always involves at least two parties -- and the default behaviour to always blame us as a first response is both incorrect and extremely unfair.

Now, there are of course plenty of excuses anyone can make for not getting involved, and all of them will have some validity, without a doubt. They can range from the misconception that one needs to have years of programming experience before even starting, to something as simple as personally disliking certain members of the community. However, community involvement can be so much more than the difficult task of implementing core features into a very complex piece of software - it is just as much about spending the time to advocate for (or against) certain technologies being used on the web; educating web masters that what they are doing is wrong and dangerous; contacting library and framework developers and opening discussions with them about what is healthy for their and everyone's future; offering simple solutions for many of these problems on the web.

So, once again: We need your help. If you enjoy Pale Moon/Basilisk/other UXP software and use it on a daily basis, please consider giving something back in terms of coding, poking programmer friends you may know, helping with forking extensions, advocating for or against technologies on websites, and whatever else you can think of that might help us survive and might help staving off a full browser monoculture result.

Thanks for reading.

1: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15505
2: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15507
3: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18211
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-07-24, 14:44

To this I can only add that community involvement and contributions no matter how small they may be such as the aforementioned advocacy, perhaps a series of one liner corrections, helping fix typos on DPMO or the Main and Linux Sites or some minor work on Pale Moon and UXP code its self can be a huge psychological boost and help motivate the few of us who work on the bigger jobs to accomplish them.

The positive energy of the group working in common cause tangibly helps each individual persist when frustration or implementation brick walls crop up as they do. Even a fresh pair of eyes can help see that little tidbit another was missing so that the issue at hand can be resolved fixed.

Likewise, massive negativity, unfair blame, attacks (both foreign and domestic), counterproductive subversion, lack of foresight, and especially insidious indifferent apatheric complacency all drag us down and will be the death of us all.

You don't HAVE to be a programmer to get started. All things considered I, personally, am not that great of a coder my self. Sure never wanted to be. I wanted to design websites and dabble in other UX design areas. I was not a decent programmer when I created the Add-ons Site. I bashed CMS Made Simple into that role for the first year or two for crying out loud. I wasn't much better when I did the vNext Research Project that is the basis for how we kept Pale Moon .. Pale Moon through Tycho to UXP. I certainly was not a half-way competent software developer when Phoebus 1.0 happened.

The bottom line is even today my coding skills are intermediate at best and only in the areas I have persisted in, mainly PHP. Fuckin love PHP.. Regardless I only got better over time because I had to work at it to accomplish all I have. My more natural skills of design, coordinated management, foundation planning, and .. uhh... pissing people off....... They have improved as well.

My point is that anyone can do anything and as long as someone does something each of us are enhanced especially if we work together to accomplish something awesome even if it overall is deemed "impossible" by outsiders who want us to fail. But if we don't do that then the only thing we will end up accomplishing our own destruction.

This can only work with all of us .. working. This is why we are the agents of our own salvation.

BenFenner
Astronaut
Astronaut
Posts: 588
Joined: 2015-06-01, 12:52
Location: US Southeast

Re: UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by BenFenner » 2021-07-26, 17:53

I'm already informing dozens of sites about their misuse of draft-spec JS.
I'm already hyping PM up to anyone I know who will listen.
I've donated money a handful of times, and need to get back on that.
I develop standards-compliant web sites both personally and professionally, testing first and mainly against Pale Moon.
I quit my previous job when my idiotic IT department told me I could no longer develop against Pale Moon.
I've just dipped my toe into helping a tiny bit with a patch to the PM repository.

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-07-26, 17:55

As for your steadfast commitment to buck the modern trends and reach out to sites who are shitting up the web.. I commend you. It can't be easy.

shevy
Banned user
Banned user
Posts: 42
Joined: 2019-04-22, 01:05

Re: UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by shevy » 2021-08-18, 19:56

> The bottom line is even today my coding skills are intermediate at best and only in the areas I have persisted in, mainly PHP. Fuckin love PHP.

I used PHP, then switched to ruby, which helped my feeble brain a LOT.

To be fair: I think C and C++ are above my mental powers. The code I write in ruby is (for me) simple. I try to avoid complexity; memory
management is hard.

Would be cool if normal people could more easily contribute. Not everyone has the skills to master C++ really. I don't, for instance. (This is
not fully related to UXP development per se. By the way, I don't think that many people know about UXP to begin with - may be useful
to mention it in a coming update to explain the ideas and thoughts behind it more. Not everyone follows development very closely.)

New Tobin Paradigm

Re: UXP development: it doesn't magically happen.

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-08-19, 01:48

I still do a lot without doing more than half a dozen insignificant cpp things. Why can't others do a thing or twelve?

Locked