it's incredible that in the span of a few yrs mozilla invented a PL and re-invented a modern browser with it, and apparently *succeeded*. hacking greenfield is one thing, but what they did with firefox is unprecedented
@alandipert Long-time Mozillian here. Nobody expected this exact outcome. From the inside it looks almost like luck—but it wasn't. The lessons I see are:
- invest $$$$ in R&D a decade before you need it
- hire PhDs
- take on long-shot projects in parallel
- retain your engineers
@alandipert - invest in dev tools & infrastructure
- your product is MUCH better when your prioritize correctly
Rust was not the only important piece. Improvements in profiling (perf measurement) played an equally important role.