Hi Tim,
Tim Wunder wrote:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[snip]
> >> Have you
> >>filed any enhancement requests/looked for some of them in bugzilla?
> >
> > God no! I don't want to bring the whole thing to a dead stop!
> >
>
> Hmmm... I seem to remember reading one of your posts indicating that Moz
> WAS dead. How can feature requests bring a dead thing to a dead stop?
Well, for one, there's an implied partial-smiley at the end of that
sentence. Any feature requests would at best distract from the main
"feature request": deliver something usable.
> Obviously, you do see progress.
>
I see movement. Struggling in the trap of a off-target design. I don't
see any progress towards the goal of a browser/email/newsreader to
compete with Comm4.7x or IE/Outlook Express.
> >> If
> >>you find any in bugzilla can you post them here? I'd really like to see
> >>a list.
> >>
> >>From what I've seen of outlook, it's pretty much the same except the
> >>list on the left uses large icons instead of a list.
> >
> > You haven't seen much of Outlook then. If it had a decent newsreader in
> > it, I'd have completely dumped Nav4.7x long ago.
> >
>
> You keep comparing Moz's Mail/News with Outlook.
I try not to. I think this post is the only time I have done so, and
that only in response to sombody's question. As you indicate, it's not
really fair to compare it to a pay-for app. But that's what it's
competeing with on my desktop, and I'd wager a goodly portion of the
target audience's.
[snip]
> Moz's Mail/News
> compares very favorably to Outlook Express, I think. Though, admittedly, I
> rarely use Outlook Express (Netscape 4.7x at work, KMail at home). Can you
> change your e-mail identity while composing a message in Outlook Express?
> That's a feature of Moz that I think is great. I also like the layout of
> the accounts and the account preferences dialogs. Yes, they need polish,
> but a good framework is there.
I don't use OE's email at all, so I can't comment much on that. I use
its newsreader only rarely, and overall it is not as good as
Comm4.7x's. And I agree, the "on-the-fly" identity switching is great.
Now if the reinvented tree control could draw its lines straight....
> I wish the developers would see the need for
> Return Receipts handling, but I suspect that to become a 1.x feature if it
> ever becomes a feature. Such is open source, I guess. Features that the
> developers want get in first.
>
Are they "resisting" this? Why? What possible rationale would they
have?
> I've gotta say, though, that I've enjoyed reading your many posts recently.
<blush> Well thanks; that makes one! ;-)
> You make a lot of valid points, interspersed between the trollishness of
> your posts. I think it does serve it's purpose. Indeed you are correct in
> your squeeky wheel getting the greese. But, oftentimes, the damn wheel gets
> discarded if it squeeks incessantly.
>
A not-invalid point. Here's another one though, one which I like
better:
"Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands
prophetic clarity from great hearts." -- Theodore Roosevelt
I just don't think there's a "weasel-word" way to say, "you use twice
the memory of your predecessor, yet you're only displaying a blank
page", or "I've seen this same mistake a dozen times, why are you
repeating it?"
> You seem to have a very negative outlook on Moz that I don't share
> (at least as it's protrayed in your posts -- are you REALLY as sour on Moz
> as your posts indicate?).
I do have a very negative... Outlook... (<@:^)) on Mozilla, for reasons
I hope I've made clear: after three years of work, all that the masses
can download is something that looks worse than Comm4.7x, uses ***way***
more resources, and simply doesn't work as well.
> While I am disappointed in the speed at which
> they're progressing to 1.0 to say they're not making progress is simply
> wrong.
I have never meant to imply that "progress towards 1.0" is not
happening. It is. "1.0" will be painted on the side at some future
date, that's clear. My point is that underneath that "1.0" paint will
be an unusable piece of software that nobody but the most religious will
use in preference to Comm4.7x or IE. After three-plus years of work
(and untold man-years), I think that's a shame.
> Obviously, since you're following the project, and downloading
> nightlies, you think it's progressing, too.
Again, there's motion. It's wriggling. I don't consider it "progress",
not toward the stated goal of a usable product, and not toward the
stated goal of a "platform".
> To judge it's impact on usage
> statistics is short-sighted. Moz is nowhere near ready for general use
> (yeah yeah -- three years SHOULD be plenty of time to build a browser...),
> as either Mozilla or Netscape 6 (an abomination, AOL at it's best/worst).
> But, I believe there are plenty of people waitng on Moz 1.0, and the next
> Netscape release (6.1, 6.5, 7.0, whatever they'll call it). I think
> Mozilla WILL have a real impact. (ah... maybeI 'm a religious fanatic,
> too...).
>
Do you honestly think people will drop their Comm4.7x's and IE 6.0's for
Mozilla, when that "1.0" paint finally arrives? I don't, because I
cannot imagine Mozilla getting fixed enough to compete with either in
any realistic timeframe.
> Granted, the mail/news needs alot of work. Spit and polish, bug fixing,
> that kind of thing. But it's shaping up. It's a damn site better than it
> was when Netscape 6 first came out. And its significantly better than it
> was as recently as Moz 0.8 and 0.8.1. But it's a far cry from being ready.
> I suspect we're gonna see several 0.9.x releases before 1.0 and I think
> that's a good thing.
>
Depending on what we end up seeing, yep, that is a good thing. But I
don't think we'll end up seeing significant changes. Again, may I
remind the jury, we've been looking for over three years now.
> But, the browser client as represented by the last few nightlies I've
> downloaded has been very quick.
Well I'd hope so, given how much memory it hogs. Again, over 22MB *TO
DISPLAY A BLANK PAGE*.
> Much better than Netscape 4.7 and slightly
> better than MSIE 5 on My 1.2 GHz Athlon running Win2K (yes, I know). It's
> still a little tough to use on my Pentium 233, though. It is improving on
> mid range hardware, though. The browser was much snappier on my son's
> K6-2-500 than it had been, even better than MSIE 5. But plug-in support
> seems to be lacking (else he'd be using it instead of MSIE), He likes his
> Shockwave games, he does.
>
Now see, I think the speed of the browser (page-viewing speed, not the
load speed, which is abominable) has been really good too, but the
numbers I keep seeing on .performance don't bear that out. So I don't
know what's going on there.
> I suspect, though, that you'll pass me off as just another Moz evangelist
> (maybe I am),
Not at all! It seems to me that you've got a good, balanced view of the
current state of Mozilla. If I'm going to "pass you off" at all, it
would be for suffering from the same "well, it'll get better" wishful
thinking that I suffered from for too long.
> but I think it's progressing nicely and I'm looking forward
> to it one day becoming a great product.
>
Friend, we both look forward to that day. I just see no evidence that
that day will ever come.
