Weekly Engineering Newsletter 2011-03-16

[Asa Dotzler]

Here it is: issue 9 of the Weekly Engineering Newsletter, your source
for up to the minute news on what's going happening with the Mozilla
engineering organization. When you've got a need to know, we've got the
knowledge you need.

Let's hit it!

*Planning Update*

Last week our first release candidate of Firefox 4 went out to several
million beta testers. After a week of feedback and daily triage sessions
to sift through all of the feedback, today's triage session concluded
with all systems go for a Firefox 4 launch on March 22nd.

We will continue our daily triage meetings over the next week, and
assuming all goes according to plan, the Firefox 4 RC bits will become
the Firefox 4 final release bits.

Next up, Rob Sayrer published a draft of the post-Fx4 rapid release
process which outlines the high-level mechanics of shipping new Firefox
versions much faster. You all should absolutely give it a read and then
help iron out any bugs. The draft document can be found at:

http://people.mozilla.com/~sayrer/2011/temp/process.html

Today the Firefox Mobile team wrapped up its Firefox 4 work and gave the
order to "go to build" for the first release candidate of the mobile
version of Firefox 4. This means that mozilla-central will soon be
opening for Firefox 5 changes.

*Must Read Blogs & News*

Recap of reddit IAmA for Firefox 4 RC
http://dailycavalier.com/2011/03/recap-of-reddit-iama-for-firefox-4-rc/

Alexander Limi — UX improvements in Firefox 4
http://limi.net/articles/firefox-4

Mozilla Web Development — HTML5 Form Validation on SUMO
http://blog.mozilla.com/webdev/2011/03/14/html5-form-validation-on-sumo/

Gervase Markham — Major Browsers: UI Language Coverage Stats
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HackingForChrist/~3/KQCx6TjFEW4/major_browsers_ui_language_coverage_stat.html

*A Taste of Awesome*

Two gorgeous new demos just hit the Web O Wonder. You absolutely have to
see these demos showing off some of the amazing Web platform
improvements in Firefox 4. Big shout out to the contributors who keep
inspiring us all with fantastic Web technology showcases.

Check out the new hotness(es):
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/03/css3-planetarium/
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/03/runfield/