2016 accomplishments and 2017 objectives

[Patrick Brosset]

Hi,

2017 is just around the corner so I wanted to take a step back and look at
all the things that had been accomplished with DevTools over 2016, and then
share with you the strategy going forward into next year.

2016 was a pretty amazing year in terms of new features and refactorings:

- we worked on more ways to prototype in the browser, modifying elements
in the page, adding nodes to the inspector,
- added ways to highlight elements better in the page, including
white-spaces that are hard to debug,
- we made working with CSS in the rule-view far easier,
- we innovated with ways to debug modern CSS layout features such as
Grid,
- we completely re-developed the responsive design mode, and added
features like network throttling, device selection, touch emulation, DPI
selection, etc.
- we made creating fast animations easier,
- we shipped a tool to list, debug and test service workers,
- we made it possible to edit local, session, cookie storage,
- we greatly improved the brand new memory tool,
- we made it possible for users to get information about any error
displayed in the console,
- made the console input multi-line,
- made the values within Maps and Sets visible in the console and
debugger,
- attached JS stacks to HTTP requests so you know where they come from,
- helped many users successfully transition from Firebug to our built-in
DevTools,
- and even built a new debugger and console UIs from scratch,
experimenting with hosting our project in GitHub in the process,
- and that's not even mentioning the tons of theme, ux, accessibility,
RTL changes,
- and, oh yeah, the massive refactoring of XUL and chrome-privileged
code!

I think everyone who contributed to the project this year, whether coding,
reporting issues, testing, getting the word out, etc. should be really
proud of what they accomplished.

Now, let's look at what lies ahead. Below is the list of objectives that
we've, so far, settled on for the year to come (minor changes are possible
as planning happens over the coming weeks). These are high level annual
objectives. They will get refined into more concrete objectives quarter
after quarter in 2017.

1. Develop the next generation of performance tools for internal use

- Lead a combined effort of the various performance tooling projects at
Mozilla.
- Ship a performance debugging & analysis tool targeted at platform
engineers.
- Train gecko/firefox engineers on using performance tooling.

This is an important one in light of project Quantum
<https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/a-quantum-leap-for-the-web-a3b7174b3c12#.w4ngmye5p>
.

2. Increase our Daily Active Users among lead users by 1%

- Identify and build 1 - 3 unique and innovated tools that take
advantage of new platform features.
- Develop and execute a marketing strategy promoting each of these
tools.
- Cultivate and reward a culture of promoting and discussing our work
with the wider web developer audience.
- Developer 1 or 2 innovative features outside of Firefox that
improves our innovative brand perception and brings people back
to Firefox
DevTools.

3. Focus and ship DevTools faster, to where most of users are

- Extract the DevEdition experience (theme, preferences, etc) from
Aurora and ship it to developers on other Firefox channels.
- Transitions to a model of remotely shipping DevTools as a service
such that we can deliver changes to the release population as fast as we
fix them.
- Move lesser used panels (e.g. Shader, Canvas, Webaudio) out of
DevTools default build and into GitHub to promote community ownership.

Patrick