For the past several months, everyone has been bitching about the lack of availability of Chrome on the Mac. So Google did something about it, and formally released a developer build to the public, making sure to note that it wasn’t really ready for prime-time. Nevertheless, a ton of people downloaded it and then started bitching that it wasn’t ready for prime-time. So today, the lead engineer on Chrome for the Mac took some time to respond to the critics.
“What was the point of releasing at this stage, you might ask? It’s clearly not finished. Clearly. It’s missing a large number of features, some half implemented, others not at all. Why even bother? Doesn’t it just make us look bad?,” Mike Pinkerton (also the man who leads the Camino browser development team for Mozilla) writes today. His answer is basically that they don’t care how it makes them look to release an unfinished product. Part of the development cycle of open source software is to get it in the hands of outside developers and have them help in completing the product.
Makes sense to me.
But Pinkerton goes on to further quote the famous essay “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric Raymond:
“When you start community-building, what you need to be able to present is a plausible promise. Your program doesn’t have to work particularly well. It can be crude, buggy, incomplete, and poorly documented. What it must not fail to do is (a) run, and (b) convince potential co-developers that it can be evolved into something really neat in the foreseeable future.”
And he then follows that with another three paragraphs of justifications.
But the post probably could have been two paragraphs — if not shorter. Don’t listen to the haters Mac Chrome team, you’re doing a good job. Yes, it’s taking you a long time, but at least we know when it’s done, it should be a solid product. Hopefully more solid than Safari 4, which Apple officially released yesterday and has been giving myself and quite a few others, fits.
Download chrome for MAc and Linux
http://teentech...-linux-and-mac/
Thanks, I can’t wait to try the one that runs on Linux.
it was bad enough in the last thread, but you need the banhammer, stat.
Download MAC from “TEEN TECH GURU”
Why do we need another Browser? FF and Safari works fine on the Mac.
Also, why use another product from Google that would allow them to collect more data about you? Feed them more stuff so they can generate more ad dollars?
Don’t get me wrong… I love Google stuff, but why do we need another Browser?
Because it’s better…
You are not making any sense dude. Go back to your own Windowslogy world!
why do you think it’s a question of need?
It’s not a nessesary thing, but you really can’t over saturerate a market of browsers because eventually people will stick with one.
the whole concept of introducing a new one was probably a way of introducing new features that no other browser would make available.
It’s Google’s way of changing the market for the better.
It’s not a necessary thing, but you really can’t over saturate a market of browsers because eventually people will stick with one.
the whole concept of introducing a new one was probably a way of introducing new features that no other browser would make available.
It’s Google’s way of changing the market for the better.
Can’t wait
It’s interesting to see how Google Chrome is stealing away Safari users.
LOL… right. You don’t have a clue dude. All of your posts in this thread are half-retarded.
I totally agree with you Steve. He is from another planet and lost in his own world.
“Yes, it’s taking you a long time, but at least we know when it’s done, it should be a solid product”
Strange, I missed the part where you explain how we know that.
People are used to most google products being in Beta for ever but still work, so many people would confuse a beta with a developer version and still expect this to work. The problem is that a) they cant expect everboy to clearly understand the difference between a beta and a develover previus b) their own policy of calling things beta for years (eg gmail).
“Hopefully more solid than Safari…”
Safari 4 works fine for me. 100% reliable than Firefox’s predictable crashes on IDG sites. Seems like PICNIC to me.
safari 4 crashes quite often for me.
I think I’m just going to join in the chorus.
“This will be another browser in for internet users to install and see how they like it. It will be interesting to see where it goes.”
Dude, just get a PC.
Laughable comment of the day. Well done.
Right. I miss all the viruses and spyware and bullshit.
Redundant. The Google Squared release already told us they don’t care how bad it makes them look to release a half-assed product.
I’ve bene wanting to use use Chrome since it was introduced.
Other than not having flash (which I can look at in Safari or Firefox), it works fairly well.
And unlike Safari, it hasn’t crashed yet.
This all seems obvious to me. Google probably doesn’t care if it EVER releases Chrome for Mac/Linux.
What’s the point? To make us geeks happy? NOT. Chrome has one aim… to unseat Internet Explorer.
Why? Because IE is the only browser that doesn’t support Google’s view of the future. That is browser-based applications for everything.
From Google I/O a couple of weeks ago… all modern browsers support HTML5. IE is not a modern browser. IE does not support HTML5. IE is the default browser on far too many factory installs. Google needs to change this.
Google put a download link for Chrome on their minimalistic search page. When was the last time you saw that? Google wants IE eradicated from the planet. Like smallpox.
As a developer… I can’t say I blame them.
is it just me or does Mr. Siegler’s writing seem more like personal blog posts and less like journalism. Not that it matters, but I do think that if TC is trying to establish themselves as a journalistic outlet (which Mr. Arrington has at least implied on a number of occasions), they would be better served if Mr. Siegler learned how to better divorce his personal opinions from his posts.
On Ubuntu Jaunty I have the same problem with flash on chrome. Simply it don’t wotk
Half the products that come from Google are piece of crap and “Chrome” for mac is the one that can be added to this list.
The only reason i see why this is released at this time is the “loosers” in chrome team are not able to figure out how to build a proper browser on mac and they definitely need help from outside.
Folks save your time “chrome for mac” is a big piece of shit
The Chrome for Mac release is quite usable for digging around the web as it is. How much do you print anyway? It’s fast which is most important to me. I’m glad MG Siegler stood up for the developers in release it. He’s brought a great new voice to TC and has become my favorite writer on the site. Love his headlines.
By the way, nothing to do with this post, did anybody encounter issues with YouTube today? On my side (i’m in Asia) i was forced to upgrade to Flash 10 on different Mac to be able to play anything…