joel writes an article on code reuse, which has some good points. however, while he may be right in saying that not releasing a netscape 5.0 was a strategic mistake, there really was a huge problem technical problem in releasing a version 5 (at least one that could have competed with ie5). unfortunately, netscape was badly designed, with a huge monolothic code base, with the 4.x versions running on basically a kludge upon kludge version of the mosaic engine. because of the poor initial design, and a several year coasting period (ie was designed modularly and with the trident engine it leapt past what netscape had), it wasn’t feasible to simply overhaul the browser… so you have mozilla. which being picky, only took 2 years, not 3. it’s definitely an impressive feat, with the tools developed, bugzilla, bonsai, and tinderbox, being worthwhile project on their own. most important, however is that mozilla was redesigned properly. the emphasis on cross platform modularity, with XPCOM and XPFE will most likely obviate the need for a total overhaul for some time to come. lastly, and perhaps most important to note, is that the mozilla project is far more than netscape 6. others have waxed poetic about some of the possibilities, but really i must say, that from both a programmer’s perspective and speaking as a web developer, mozilla tickes me pink.
inaccuracies, musings, commentary welcome.