Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
alexhopmann.com
Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
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Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#2Thank god for smmry
Reduced to 5 sentence for those who don't want to read the whole post.
` How we actually shipped XMLHTTP It was one thing to have this cool component we could use to talk to the server, but we still weren't in any position to use it in the shipping product yet.
Which is the real explanation of where the name XMLHTTP comes from- the thing is mostly about HTTP and doesn't have any specific tie to XML other than that was the easiest excuse for shipping it so I needed to cram XML into the name.
The beta shipped and the OWA team was able to start running forward using the beta IE5, while Shawn fixed a number of bugs through the ship day of IE5.
Actually shipping the thing required help from many more people that I've mentioned so far.
The lesson to take out of this thing is to appreciate the importance of shipping and having the patience to let something succeed.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#3I thought this was well-known? Microsoft invented it for OWA but didn't realize what they had. A few years later other people realized how transformative it was and evangelized it. Other browsers added compatible implementations. The rest is history.
It is amusing to see the take in Avalon since we now know how that turned out. His complaints about HTML/JS/DOM are spot-on but it turns out the solution was to improve HTML, JS, and the DOM.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#4XmlHttpRequest is an awesome innovation from the point of view of the software development community as a whole.
But from a Microsoft shareholder's point of view it was a disaster. XmlHttpRequest and ContentEditableDiv (known back then as DesignMode) ushered in Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 ended Microsoft's dominance of the software industry by making Windows irrelevant.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#5XmlHttpRequest is an awesome innovation from the point of view of the software development community as a whole. But from a Microsoft shareholder's point of view it was a disaster. XmlHttpRequest and ContentEditableDiv (known back then as DesignMode) ushered in Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 ended Microsoft's dominance of the software industry by making Windows irrelevant.
> by making Windows irrelevant
Yeah, like it's not the most popular OS out there :) What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software.
BTW if Microsoft didn't invent XmlHttpRequest, somebody else had done it.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#6This was the good-old-days when critical features were crammed in just days before a release
We did a quick security review but at the time no one really understood the seriousness or types of vulnerabilities that anything shipping could cause
Explains the horrendous level of quality of all Microsoft products at that time! I find the honesty in these statements very refreshing.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#7XmlHttpRequest is an awesome innovation from the point of view of the software development community as a whole. But from a Microsoft shareholder's point of view it was a disaster. XmlHttpRequest and ContentEditableDiv (known back then as DesignMode) ushered in Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 ended Microsoft's dominance of the software industry by making Windows irrelevant.
> by making Windows irrelevant Yeah, like it's not the most popular OS out there :) What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software. BTW if Microsoft didn't invent XmlHttpRequest, somebody else had done it.
> What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software.
The commonly held belief at the time was that Microsoft's dominance rested in large part on that desktop software. Think how hard it would be today if you wanted to start a new mobile OS (let's call it "windows phone") years after entire software ecosystems have been established for iPhone and Android.
It's safe to say that Microsoft is not the shining star they once were. If we were to pick a single moment in history that lead to their undoing, I think this would be it.
> BTW if Microsoft didn't invent XmlHttpRequest, somebody else had done it.
"Somebody else" didn't have the market share IE did. Something that was incompatible with IE at the time was a non-starter. What's remarkable about this story is that when Microsoft saw the browser coming in the Netscape years, their entire strategy was to head that shit off by ensuring that their own browser become market dominant so that they could keep the web in a place that wouldn't hurt MS.
After all that effort, the anti-trust suit, etc, etc... and they'd gotten themselves in the place where they controlled the future of the web, it was some random developer at Microsoft itself that invented the very thing which was their undoing.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
> by making Windows irrelevant Yeah, like it's not the most popular OS out there :) What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software. BTW if Microsoft didn't invent XmlHttpRequest, somebody else had done it.
> What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software. The commonly held belief at the time was that Microsoft's dominance rested in large part on that desktop software. Think how hard it would be today if you wanted to start a new mobile OS (let's call it "windows phone") years after entire software ecosystems have been established for iPhone and Android. It's safe to say that Microsoft i…
> If we were to pick a single moment in history that lead to their undoing, I think this would be it.
That was a pivotal moment but I would pick 2005/2006 when they decided to stop investing in Windows Mobile. The same period that Apple was secretly inventing the iPhone.
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#9This was the good-old-days when critical features were crammed in just days before a release We did a quick security review but at the time no one really understood the seriousness or types of vulnerabilities that anything shipping could cause Explains the horrendous level of quality of all Microsoft products at that time! I find the honesty in these statements very refreshing.
Seems like a bit of a contrast between that and this:
http://moishelettvin.blogspot.ca/2006/11/windows-shutdown-cr...
Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> by making Windows irrelevant Yeah, like it's not the most popular OS out there :) What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software. BTW if Microsoft didn't invent XmlHttpRequest, somebody else had done it.
> What Web2.0 did is that it removed the need of certain type of desktop software. The commonly held belief at the time was that Microsoft's dominance rested in large part on that desktop software. Think how hard it would be today if you wanted to start a new mobile OS (let's call it "windows phone") years after entire software ecosystems have been established for iPhone and Android. It's safe to say that Microsoft i…
> If we were to pick a single moment in history that lead to their undoing
I always find these sorts of comments interesting.
Microsoft is a very different business than say other failures who you could point to a single event (Kodak, Word Perfect, Lotus Software, Myspace)
Remember, Microsoft have over $100 BILLION in cash[0].
You could perhaps cherry pick certain parts of the business. But I remember the stories of how they made more money from Android than Windows Phone[1].
Microsoft has a long, LONG way to fall before I would say they have failed.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/why-micro... [1] http://gizmodo.com/5806227/did-you-know-microsoft-makes-five...