Comment Re:"UNIX philosophy" is outdated (Score 1) 133
Granted, Firefox has some bloat. But would you prefer one browser for Shockwave pages, another for PDF pages, still another one for myspace.com, and so on? Firefox achieves its flexibility largely through plugins controlled by the user. Good plugins tend to be small programs that "do one thing well". People create interesting UNIX applications by combining small, unifunctional programs in creative ways.
Firefox is primarily the user's interface to the HTTP protocol and other specialized protocols. It still has to do presentation in a human-friendly way. The fact that the user can manipulate the user interface by changing the skin, swapping out plugins, and browsing with or without multiple tabs is very UNIX-like. It's not one size fits all. You're free to change its look and behavior as a user--without having to write code.
Think of it as "user interface scripting". It may not be your father's idea of scripting, but it's scripting nonetheless. Scripting is a core concept of the UNIX philosophy.
Firefox is primarily the user's interface to the HTTP protocol and other specialized protocols. It still has to do presentation in a human-friendly way. The fact that the user can manipulate the user interface by changing the skin, swapping out plugins, and browsing with or without multiple tabs is very UNIX-like. It's not one size fits all. You're free to change its look and behavior as a user--without having to write code.
Think of it as "user interface scripting". It may not be your father's idea of scripting, but it's scripting nonetheless. Scripting is a core concept of the UNIX philosophy.
