Mozilla Skywriter leaves cloud city
From the 'Lando Calrissian' files:
Mozilla's open source effort to build an online code editor is gearing up for its 1.0 release. As tends to be common for Mozilla, the 1.0 release marker also is when there is often a name change too (think Weave/Sync, Phoenix/Firefox etc.).
Mozilla Bespin has been in development at Mozilla Labs since at least February of 2009and as of late last week, the project is now called 'Skywriter'.
While Bespin/Skywriter was originally an idea to build a coding system for cloud-based development, it's moving toward become an online/offline tool as well. Dangoor noted in his blog post that a desktop version of Skywriter is on the roadmap.
Mozilla's open source effort to build an online code editor is gearing up for its 1.0 release. As tends to be common for Mozilla, the 1.0 release marker also is when there is often a name change too (think Weave/Sync, Phoenix/Firefox etc.).
Mozilla Bespin has been in development at Mozilla Labs since at least February of 2009and as of late last week, the project is now called 'Skywriter'.
"As we approach a 1.0 release, it was clear that it was time to shed Bespin's code name and give it a real, lasting project name," Mozilla developer Kevin Dangoor blogged. "We're happy to announce that that name is Mozilla Skywriter. I think that Mozilla Skywriter fits the "coding in the cloud" theme very well indeed."Personally, I liked the name Bespin (a reference to Cloud City in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) and the name Skywriter sounds remarkably close to 'Skywalker' -- another Star Wars reference.
While Bespin/Skywriter was originally an idea to build a coding system for cloud-based development, it's moving toward become an online/offline tool as well. Dangoor noted in his blog post that a desktop version of Skywriter is on the roadmap.
In my view, I had wanted to see a Mozilla-backed Bespin cloud service that could enable anyone to have their own Bespin/Skywriter instance to build apps. That's not the direction that Mozilla is taking though.
Instead, Skywriter really is a framework that will enable the development of those online building tools that I want to see and use. One such tool is Mozilla's new add-on builder codenamed flight deck, which is the pinnacle of cool.
Another interesting note, is that Skywriter development is now being done in GitHub and not Mercurial. That's a good sign for the community development/contribution of Skywriter in my view as Git provides a better environment for broad contributions, merging and branching.
I don't expect the core Firefox project to switch to Git anytime soon (if ever), but it will be interesting to see how the different SCMs in use at Mozilla net different results for development projects.
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