221–230 of 234 posts
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Not if you don't use IE
IE will be used as a browser widget at API level by third party apps, so using it will be almost unavoidable.
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You got the lock-in strategy backwards. It exists to allow the incumbent not to improve their products while maximizing their profits because they don't have to compete.
We are talking browsers here, there isn't much differentiation, it's a basic service. Even then, mobile safari is the most advanced one...
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That sounds like a function of the people you've met tbh. Looking at job postings around these parts, the most widespread platform remains .NET. Whilst the non-existent adoption amongst startups doesn't necessarily bode well for MSFT's future, there is still a huge amount of .NET development going on worldwide.
Sure many enterprises use .NET, just like many enterprises use Java and COBOL running on zSeries mainframes. What fraction of that .NET jobs would you call "interesting" of "cutting edge"? .NET developers aren't in the endangered species list. Not more than COBOL developers who know what CICS means.
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No downloadable executable content. You can have an alternative programming language interpreter in your program (now), but it can only run scripts that are already in the application bundle. It's a reasonable restriction from a user's point of view—you don't want to allow arbitrary code execution that may expose vulnerabilities in badly coded applications. It sucks from a developer's point of view.
> You can have an alternative programming language interpreter in your program (now), but it can only run scripts that are already in the application bundle. If what you say is true, how come there are other web browsers in the App Store?
Other browsers just wrap the native webkit.
My feeling here (ex-MSFT employee, so maybe biased one way or another) is that Mozilla is going after the soft underbelly of Microsoft, because they can . Mozilla is already locked out of iOS and they have failed at getting Apple to budge. If WinRT locks them out, they'll be locked out of two out of the three major tablet platforms (it's a safe assumption that WinRT will get some marketshare at least). Microsoft is a…
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We are talking browsers here, there isn't much differentiation, it's a basic service. Even then, mobile safari is the most advanced one...
That's how IE6 used to be, too. But because they eliminated all their competition, they didn't have to advance it anymore. It was cheaper and easier to keep it the same.
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Sure many enterprises use .NET, just like many enterprises use Java and COBOL running on zSeries mainframes. What fraction of that .NET jobs would you call "interesting" of "cutting edge"? .NET developers aren't in the endangered species list. Not more than COBOL developers who know what CICS means.
I like to think that my job of writing software with .NET to control deep sea robots is interesting. How many ruby/python developers could you say the same thing about though? I mean, most web apps are simple CRUD things, which are not interesting or cutting edge. That's an invariant across all programmers.
If you read HN enough, you'll find that rbanffy's posts generally seem to come from a worldview where credit due to Microsoft, or even to those who use Microsoft products, is close to untenable. In other fora I've seen similar people referred to as ABMers - Anything But Microsoft. I mean, I'm pretty much a Linux/Unix guy (Macs and Linux alike), but I use .NET because it's the most portable option worth working with for my stuff. It's good for that. Sometimes even--gasp--Microsoft comes up with something worthwhile, and outside of the universes perpetuated by folks like rbanffy, many Microsoft products are even liked.
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First three rules of security: Layers, Layers , LAYERS . To your point, in theory you could accomplish security by totally securing the JIT, or by totally securing the OS, and then exec's JITed code would be ok. However, totally secured JITers and OSs are as mythical as sufficiently smart compilers.
Totally secure, sure. Nothing nontrivial is totally secure, but... One reasonable option would be requiring any JIT to be via a typed assembly language. You should be able to get a good compromise with close to the performance of native code and the security of verified bytecode from that.
So, if you want a JIT via a typed assembly language you can compile down to CIL. Firefox could do this, but then they couldn't specialize their JIT to run JavaScript properly, which is the hard part anyways. V8 and Gecko are very cool engines, and compiling javascript to CIL wouldn't compete.
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exactly zero windows applications that exist currently will run under metro/winRT, so by extension, windows ARM.
Oddly enough it seems Firefox is able to JIT on Metro/x86