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Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

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Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#121

Post by recycleme »

spamizbad wrote: post #116
zaatar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I worked on IE from 2007-2013) Yes, the current IE team is extremely strong, and has only gotten smarter & stronger during the time I worked there. There's tons of meetings I've walked out of where we made a decision to do X rather than Y because "the standard says to do X" and it was the guiding principle for decision-making.

That's really good to hear. But why was the non-standard way even an option?

> But why was the non-standard way even an option?

People tend to have their own ideas on how things should be done. They should definitely be heard too. There is nothing wrong with questioning or doing things differently than current standards dictate as long as you have open, honest discussions.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#122

Post by bad_user »

MichaelGG wrote: post #71
runjake wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As a person who seems to defend Microsoft quite often on HN, I can't shake the feeling that if they get to first place in anything, they'll become massive tools once again. I like seeing them as the underdog, it forces Microsoft to be kinder and more free, but I think innovation and progress would be seriously hindered (once again) if t…

Take, for instance, SQL Server. It's become quite an interesting and capable platform over the last decade. It used to be that Microsoft took the stance that hardware improvements were the customer's benefit, so they'd license per socket, full stop. They used to mock Oracle with their licensing depending on what kind of CPU and how powerful it was. Latest SQL Server? Yep, you pay depending on the CPU vendor (AMD or I…

Just use something open-source - you'll get the Awesome [1] edition on any kind of chip.

I never understood why some people prefer to buy licensed stuff from Oracle or Microsoft. Do you like pain?

[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/oh-you-wanted-aweso...

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#123

Post by VeejayRampay »

recursive wrote: post #40
marizcombinator wrote: post #24

Just use webkit already...

Fix the old bad monoculture with a new shiny monoculture.

WebKit is LGPL and BSD licensed though. I don't care about a monoculture if it's a culture where everyone gets to modify the innards for the greater good.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#124

Post by twistedpair »

megaman821 wrote: post #78
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

I have cursed at working around IE quirks more times than I can remember, but I don't dump all the blame on Microsoft. Why is this the top comment, it is just a rant/whine? What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not, and by in large they haven't. Then it becomes Microsoft's fault…

>Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not

No. MS links new browser updates to OS releases. You can still run plenty of modern browsers on XP... just not one made by MS. How sad.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#125

Post by sp332 »

eCa wrote: post #81
resu_nimda wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being very familiar with browser standards, I found this bit pretty funny: navigator.appName is now set to “Netscape” This may seem like a sneaky attempt to trick developers, but this behavior is actually specified in HTML5.

This seems like a way to force developers to use the correct way to detect which browser is used: Check for the specific thing you want to do.

I thought it was because (when the standard was defined) some web servers would only serve compliant content to Netscape browsers. edit: according to aclimatt, it was used for frames detection.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#126

Post by bad_user »

nwilliams wrote: post #77
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

Well, the case of Opera's Presto engine being forced to die in the past few years proved that the holy grail of everything being fine and dandy if browser engines and websites follow web standards is a big lie. Opera is/was known for its standards support, . Google Service Drops Support for Opera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195298 G+ doesn't support Opera... why? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2738099…

> Chrome and Firefox started their own take on HTML beta and experimental features and led to a race of broken standard support

Personally I'm quite happy that Mozilla is engaging in this feature race, as Google lately is in the habit of pushing technologies that have the potential to fragment the web and break the fragile standards that we do have - and I'm talking specifically about replacements for Javascript, like Dart, PNaCl, but also about things like Web SQL Database [1]. This is why Mozilla is doing an awesome job in bringing balance, with things like asm.js or IndexedDB [2].

If you think about it, this is quite good, since standards aren't development in the vacuum, as you need experiments and prototypes released to the public for useful feedback. XmlHttpRequest itself started as an ActiveX extension. How can you make a standard out of something if you don't experiment? Also WebKit is the new IExplorer, that's why Firefox is so important.

[1] http://dev.w3.org/html5/webdatabase/

[2] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis...

> Final result? A browser engine known for speed, leanness and standards support killed, because it couldn't keep up with the big browsers' incompatible beta standard support, and the number of websites that go for the latest and greatest and don't care one bit about standards support over cool features.

It's regrettable really, but on the other hand they were also killed for not being open-source. Really, in this day and age, non open-source browsers don't make sense, unless you're Apple or Microsoft.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#127

Post by eksith »

nwilliams wrote: post #112
eksith wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thank your bad mood for brightening up mine! That was spectacular and joyful to read and I agree wholeheartedly. The sad thing is that when I was "designing for IE" as a young lad, I had no idea that's what I was doing. "The browser" was what came with the computer and that was Netscape and later IE. It took a while to wean myself off of : if (document.all) { } And when I discovered other continents to explore, I r…

That comment reminded me of the Microsoft ad video targeted at web devs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD9FAOPBiDk&hd=1 Interesting and funny video, regardless of if you think anything changed.

If they really did come up with the Karaoke web standard, my opinion of them will likely soften. Until, of course, developers only start developing with the Non Participant variant, in which case, they can all die in a fire!

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6825830/8-types-of-karao...

My past experience says it will likely be the Old Faded Glory for Firefox and The Unironic Ironic for BB10 with The Clown for Chrome.

Great. Now we have 4 more standards thanks to Microsoft!

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#128

Post by GhotiFish »

tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

This is my position as well. However I expect if IE becomes dominate, Microsoft will revert to monopolistic practices. On those grounds alone I will never accept IE, even if they pass your bar.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#129

Post by com2kid »

tracker1 wrote: post #48

"By finally removing the evidence of past mistakes..." I think it's worth pointing out that these removed bits aren't evidence of past mistakes at all. They're left over from a time before the standards were defined by the W3C. At this point, and it is about time, they should rightly be removed, and the standard/common way should prevail. That doesn't mean a given feature was rooted in a mistake. I think the biggest…

> Unfortunately XP was locked out at IE8, and Vista at IE9...

I am on a laptop with a dedicated GPU and Windows 7, I am locked into IE9 due to driver issues.

(I'll admit this is partially HP/AMDs fault for having cruddy drivers!)

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#130

Post by icebraining »

bad_user wrote: post #122
MichaelGG wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take, for instance, SQL Server. It's become quite an interesting and capable platform over the last decade. It used to be that Microsoft took the stance that hardware improvements were the customer's benefit, so they'd license per socket, full stop. They used to mock Oracle with their licensing depending on what kind of CPU and how powerful it was. Latest SQL Server? Yep, you pay depending on the CPU vendor (AMD or I…

Just use something open-source - you'll get the Awesome [1] edition on any kind of chip. I never understood why some people prefer to buy licensed stuff from Oracle or Microsoft. Do you like pain? [1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/oh-you-wanted-aweso...

I never understood why some people prefer to buy licensed stuff from Oracle or Microsoft. Do you like pain?

"nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment"

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