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Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

alexhopmann.com

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Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#11

Post by bbarn »

jaza wrote: post #6

This 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.

When you're the first one to do something, it's hard to think ahead to every possible exploitation someone else will think of.

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#12

Post by frik »

The sentense about GMail using XHR before Googe Suggest is wrong. GMail and Google Maps used iFrames, but not XHR in the first few years, and started to use XHR only in 2006+.

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#13

Post by smallnamespace »

netcommentator wrote: post #4

XmlHttpRequest 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.

> But from a Microsoft shareholder's point of view it was a disaster.

The disaster is not in inventing the next technology, because if you don't someone else will do so anyway. The failure is failing to exploit what you invented before anyone else does.

But that's inherently difficult to do. Large organizations are usually oriented towards rewarding and incentivizing what makes them money today.

It's easier to be a real start-up than an internal startup at a large company, because it's hard to duplicate real-world market incentives internally.

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#14

Post by bboreham »

netcommentator wrote: post #4

XmlHttpRequest 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.

Recall that at the time Java was set to make Windows irrelevant. Microsoft had a massive success, via XML, in derailing this future.

To explain a little, the Sun position was "use Java to write everything; then it all talks together nicely". But folks realised they could use XML to tie different pieces together and relegated Java to the server. Yes, there were other other ways to interop, eg CORBA, but they were ugly, expensive and heavyweight.

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#15

Post by pjmlp »

xenadu02 wrote: post #3

I 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…

We were doing XMLHTTP like communication at a startup back in the early 2000's, by making use of a Java Applet and the communication JavaScritp/Applets.

I imagine we weren't the only ones doing that before XMLHTTP was born.

Regarding Avalon, I have been doing quite some consulting projects (WPF and UWP) in the last three years, and at least on the markets I move on, there are plenty of greenfield projects. :)

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#16

Post by pjmlp »

netcommentator wrote: post #4

XmlHttpRequest 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.

Funny I still see Windows desktops everywhere.

Actually I think Web 2.0 has hurt GNU/Linux more than Windows, in what concerns the desktop.

Thanks to GNU/Linux users keeping themselves happy with a xterm manager and a browser, it will never go much higher than 3%.

A browser doesn't need UNIX, apparently some people even run it almost bare metal.

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#17

Post by [deleted] »

wvenable wrote: post #9
jaza wrote: post #6

This 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...

[deleted]

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#18

Post by pjmlp »

zedred wrote: post #7
kowdermeister wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

> 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

Now we have Google for it.

"This web site works better in Chrome"

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#19

Post by EdSharkey »

netcommentator wrote: post #4

XmlHttpRequest 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.

I get a bit paranoid that some high schooler who will be the world's next Bill Gates is reading your post and think, "hmm, I've got to keep a lookout for any of my developers building XmlHttpRequest-like technology that paves the way for my future monopoly to get busted up prematurely!"

Imagine if someone in Microsoft had a clue and was able to constrain the browser to being a simple scripted document viewer? I'm convinced suppressing client-side web application development would have lent the Windows OS a few more years of platform and developer mindshare dominance!

Re: Story of XMLHTTP (2007)

#20

Post by jontro »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
xenadu02 wrote: post #3

I 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…

We were doing XMLHTTP like communication at a startup back in the early 2000's, by making use of a Java Applet and the communication JavaScritp/Applets. I imagine we weren't the only ones doing that before XMLHTTP was born. Regarding Avalon, I have been doing quite some consulting projects (WPF and UWP) in the last three years, and at least on the markets I move on, there are plenty of greenfield projects. :)

Yeah, using hidden iframes worked as well
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