Netscape® Mozilla¿ Source Code Guide

Rating:
Summary: Dive into Mozilla & Learn Advanced Programming
Review: About the Author

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William R Stanek ([e-mail]) has a master of science degree in information systems and more than a decade of hands-on experience with advanced programming and development. He is a leading network technology expert and an award-winning author. Over the years, his practical advice has helped programmers, developers, and network engineers all over the world. He is also a regular contributor to leading publications like PC Magazine, where you'll often find his work in the "Solutions" section. Recent articles include, "Easy Web Animations", "Bitmaps and Vectors: Web Graphics Evolve", "JavaScript-Powered Stylesheets", "Server-side JavaScript" and "SMIL: The New Web Format For Multimedia".

The author served in the Persian Gulf War as a combat crew member on an electronic warfare aircraft. He flew on numerous combat missions into Iraq and was awarded nine medals for his wartime service, including one of the United States of America's highest flying honors, the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross.

About the Netscape Mozilla Source Guide

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Enter the world of Mozilla and Mozilla.Org where thousands of programmers are changing the way the Net is used forever. With the Mozilla source code, programmers can create powerful custom solutions and learn advanced programming techniques from real-life examples. By providing the Communicator source code freely, Netscape is following in the tradition of great freeware success stories like Apache, Linux and BSD UNIX-all of which are provided freely and all of which have a huge following today.

I first encountered Mozilla in 1994. Back then, I was employed by the U.S. government and worked extensively with Unix/NT networking and cross-platform programming. Free software tools and resources were the cornerstones of my projects. But I never expected the great boon that came that year. 1994 was the year of many firsts. Linus Torvalds released version 1.0 of the Linux Kernal. Rob McCool, the author of the NCSA Web server, left NCSA and went on to help create the Apache Web server. Netscape Communications Corporation, founded by Marc Andreesson and Jim Clark, took the Web community by storm with the release of Navigator AKA Mozilla.

Mozilla. The name makes me think of a movie monster a la Godzilla. But Mozilla isn't a mythical monster from the depths, it is a man-made beast that has grown from a simple graphics browser to a mega-application. Its sheer size makes it tremendously complex and somewhat intimidating-even for skilled programmers. Still, imagine the lessons you can learn from such an application and the opportunities it affords?

Dozens of programmers, project managers and others worked for years to develop the code base. It is the source of thousands of programming techniques and solutions that were previously Netscape's top secrets. And now, not only can you browse the codebase freely, you can use the codebase freely as well.

Who Should Read this Book?

When I first started developing the idea for this book, I asked myself this question a lot: Who is the audience? My first thought was that the book should be focussed solely on those interested in developing solutions using the Mozilla source code. Over the next year though, as I delved deeper and deeper into the source code, I had a startling realization: Every serious C and C++ programmer should read this book.

Mozilla contains extensive libraries of C and C++ functions and modules. Not only can those functions and modules teach you a lot about coding, they can also be integrated into your development projects-provided you follow the Netscape Public License agreement. Mozilla also provides a first-class case study in developing large-scale, cross platform applications and by studying the code structure and management, you can learn more than you ever imagined.

Further, I promise you won't find pithy examples in this book. Instead, you'll find hundreds of useful "from the source" listings that demonstrate key programming concepts. Everything from file I/O to memory management to thread handling is covered. Best of all, you can use these "from the source" listings to advance your programming skills and to master Mozilla at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Skip this books
Review: Doesn't appear to cover the network library AT ALL. Appears to spend first 100 pages on generic stuff like opensource using CVS etc etc and only 1/3 on the 'meat' about how to use NSPR, and coding for mozilla

Rating:
Summary: Lightweight
Review: Doesn't appear to cover the network library AT ALL. Appears to spend first 100 pages on generic stuff like opensource using CVS etc etc and only 1/3 on the 'meat' about how to use NSPR, and coding for mozilla

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Starter Guide
Review: Getting started on the Mozilla project is nearly impossible. This book took several months off my ramp up time and I owe a huge thank you to the author Mr. Stanek. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to work with the Mozilla source. Excellent from start to finish.

I also recommend to readers who want to learn key lessons from this massive development project. Again, a good choice.

Rating:
Summary: Get the head's up on Mozilla
Review: This book couldn't possibly cover the entire Mozilla code, but I think it's excellent at getting you oriented with the structure of the Mozilla code, Mozilla.org and how to use it, basic developer stuff like CVS, and how to build Mozilla on your system, be it Unix, Linux, Windows, or Mac. I rate this one a definite buy.

Rating:
Summary: Skip this books
Review: This book simply repackages the information that is available for free from the mozilla web site and is very light on new informaiton. Couple this with the excessive use of white space, large fonts, and 1/4 of the book as a useless appendix. By all means, skip this one.

Rating:
Summary: Too much evangelizing and little technical details
Review: Unfortuantely the author has spent a lot of 'page real-estate' evangelizing the open-source movement, instead of providing more info on the innards of mozilla.

It's still a good intro if you are planning to dwelve into mozilla's source code, but it's definately lightweight.

Rating:
Summary: Too much evangelizing and little technical details
Review: Unfortuantely the author has spent a lot of 'page real-estate' evangelizing the open-source movement, instead of providing more info on the innards of mozilla.

It's still a good intro if you are planning to dwelve into mozilla's source code, but it's definately lightweight.