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The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

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Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#371
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a noob web dev working in a small shop that sells a niche SaaS product. We had a customer push us to support Edge. The dev team (3 dudes) just looked at eachother and laid down the "No, Firefox or Chrome...". It's just so much pressure to dance around the "this one does this, that one doesn't" and generally we rarely run into any Firefox and Chrome issues. Edge, just not worth it for a small team. I'm glad we pro…

> We had a customer push us to support Edge. Why though?

Because in many large companies, it's IE or Edge. If the company has upgraded to Win10, you're probably required to support Edge.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under a 2 week deadline. I challenge you to do better.

Most likely he had been thinking about the project for some time. But the 10-days-execution story sounds much nicer

I joined Netscape on April 3, 1995 but in the server team, due to a temporary requisition shortage. I worked on what would eventually become HTTP 1.1, which we wanted to be more like SPDY or HTTP 2. Therefore I had only spare time to think about what became JS, and I used it to study HyperTalk, Logo, and other languages, not just Scheme or Self.

I finally got transferred to the client team one whole month later, in early May. Then I had ten days to demo-day.

Why do you feel compelled to make up a story? Because it sounds nicer to you to denigrate my work, it seems.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#373

Regarding the topic of browser mono-cultures, I was web developer in the post browser war era in the early 2000s where we had a dominant IE6 and a stagnant browser landscape. It was bad. Real bad. But I'm actually fairly positive about MS getting into the chromium landscape and back into the game. Let's face it MS had lost all of its influence in the browser world before dropping IE and making this move. It is a Goog…

> It was bad. > Real bad.

Apparently it was not so bad that we needed a multitude of JS to JS compilation stages and instead could just, you know, execute the same JS in the browser that we actually wrote.

Also, MS invented DHTML and AJAX single handedly, against backlash from "pure" web developers.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely he had been thinking about the project for some time. But the 10-days-execution story sounds much nicer

He was... kind of. My understanding is Eich had been thinking for a while about the idea of bringing a version of Scheme into the browser. He was lured to work for Netscape by the promise that yes, he could do this. Unfortunately the business decision came down that the language's syntax had to approximate Java. So the semantics of the language had probably been settled in his mind for quite some time, but the syntax…

I've spoken and written about the early days, e.g., here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3ZABCdC38

Friends from SGI recruited me (second attempt) in March 1995, I joined in early April but in the server group. I thought a lot -- but worked too little due to server commitments -- during the month of April, about "the scripting language" which was suggested to be Scheme when I was being recruited, but which by the time I joined could not be Scheme, due to the impending Java deal between Netscape and Sun.

Java meant either no scripting language, or a kid-brother language, which meant C-like syntax, primitive vs. object types as in Java, and other unfortunate consequences.

When I transferred to the client group in early May, I had to produce a demo very quickly. I chose first class functions and (barefly there at first) prototypes as the building blocks. The rest is history.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#375
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but he also designed JavaScript, so...

I like JavaScript... it’s very flexible and incredibly expressive. Using c# lately, I just feel shackled

What can you express in JavaScript which you cant express in C#?

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE6 was closed source and only ran on Windows... Chromium/Blink run cross platform, open source and already 2 forks in. There's some stark contrast, even if it's more of a mono-culture, it's nothing like the IE6 days, even if google does have more power/control than other stakeholders.

IE had a mac version, but it died due to lack of interest/support

The Mac version had a completely different, incompatible, renderer (which was actually better than the Windows one from a standards perspective) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_(layout_engine)

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#377

If someone told the young Linux freak me back in the early 2000s that one day Internet Explorer’s rendering engine is based on the KDE rendering engine I would’ve probably died laughing and frozen in horror at the same time. Yeah, I realize there’s probably nothing left if the old KHTML but it still does give me a chuckle.

But one wouldn't have been surprised to find out that the Microsoft's KHTML based browser doesn't run on any open source operating system.

Not yet, but a Linux version of Edge is coming later:

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-edge-confirmed-comi...

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#378

Regarding the topic of browser mono-cultures, I was web developer in the post browser war era in the early 2000s where we had a dominant IE6 and a stagnant browser landscape. It was bad. Real bad. But I'm actually fairly positive about MS getting into the chromium landscape and back into the game. Let's face it MS had lost all of its influence in the browser world before dropping IE and making this move. It is a Goog…

Could you elaborate on what made it bad?

I am a web developer too, and for me, the biggest annoyance is feature inconsistency between browsers. Only yesterday, I was cursing under my breath, because webkit-based browsers allow scrollbar styling, but firefox doesn't. In our org, we have embraced CSS grid, but by doing so, made a conscious decision to finally ignore IE11 (rather than to use @supports and write fallback CSS for browsers that are left behind). Even considering the wildly improbable scenario that browser monopoly would lead to feature stagnation - at least you will have a single target with a known set of features to develop against. How can this be worse than what we have now?

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, "unofficially" doesn't fly in a lot of workplaces. Until MS pluck up the courage and do everyone a favour, IE11 will continue to haunt developers. Now we got Legacy Edge too, whoopee.

This new edge replaces the old one.

No it doesn't.

> If you’re an IT administrator, you will need to download an offline deployment package to pilot within your corporate environment—the new Microsoft Edge will not automatically deploy for commercial customers. Additionally, none of the Microsoft Edge preview channels will update to the new Microsoft Edge, as they can be used side-by-side for testing and validation.

So many of us still need to support current Edge until IT decides it is time to move on.

Re: The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been tacitly supporting Edge myself, but drew a hard line at IE (even 11) for current projects. Without async functions, promises etc, it's just too much extra boilerplate, a separate build setup and a huge payload just to support IE11, let alone older. I'll be glad if/when Edge (blink) is deployed with a windows update.. the sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned.

> Been tacitly supporting Edge myself, but drew a hard line at IE (even 11) for current projects. Without async functions, promises etc, it's just too much extra boilerplate, a separate build setup and a huge payload just to support IE11, let alone older. We've been using TypeScript for all scripts longer than ~20 lines for years - so we got async functions for free (it compiles async/await TypeScript functions to IE…

Why force all your users to download transpiled ES5, just to accommodate IE11 dinosaurs?

Not to mention all the issues you'll have if you try to use CSS Flex or Grid.

Support IE11 only if you absolutely must, is my advice, and do that with differential serving: https://philipwalton.com/articles/deploying-es2015-code-in-p...

https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2018/doing-differential-serv...

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