WebExtensions and how they interact with DocShells / BrowsingContexts
How a patch gets into Firefox, from start to finish!
Question time!
I am a CS student and I often find myself spending too much time doing assignments, trying to be as perfect as possible, especially for less useful activities like Networking etc. How would you deal with perfectionism?
The perfect is the enemy of the done. Start small. It’s better to have something that you can tinker with and improve incrementally rather than having something perfect right out the gate.
Sufficiently complex software is never perfect. There are always problems with it. There are always bugs with it.
I will be creating a web application from scratch for about 5 months (one semester: from October to the end of February) - I am wondering about the number of functions to implement - how does setting scopes work in the “real world”, what are your experiences with this topic?
There are a lot of unknowns in this question.
My first recommendation is to look at the problem space. What are the requirements?
What was your learning process like when you were a junior/ still a beginner? Did you read books/attend courses, or did you read documentation in conjunction with “learning by doing”?
Try stuff! Try cloning mozilla-central, building Firefox, and then changing a string! Something small to start. And then start exploring.
Take notes! Use a notetaking app - I use Joplin. Take notes, write down your assumptions and test them! Use the scientific method: create a hypothesis, figure out a way of testing that hypothesis, and then record the results. Repeat.
Next time:
WebExtensions and how they interact with DocShells / BrowsingContexts
How a patch gets into Firefox, from start to finish!
How is gbrowser and xpcom used? Can you talk about it too?