IE11 to support WebGL • Hacker News Board

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#21

Post by sudont » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:49 PM UTC

chez17 wrote: post #13

sdoowpilihp wrote: post #6

This is potentially great news for anyone using a browser. Let's hope that the implementation is close to spec, and makes for a relatively seamless experience across all browsers.

> Let's hope that the implementation is close to spec I got so excited for a moment and then you had to go and post this. Microsoft seems to have a desire to make things difficult for web developers.

Considering they way it went down [1], Microsoft felt (and may still feel) that the web is an enterprise market. In so, that it was selling developer tools to web shops because the code goes through Microsoft servers to Microsoft clients. IE, a vertical integration to simplify HR decisions. [2]

That ideology carries through to the spec—enterprise products often contain janky features that mean little to developers, but the world to the bosses buying them.

Thankfully Android and iOS are a driving force showing that the web is more a consumer broadcast space than one built simply for the spec that best matches someone's tech opinions.

1. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/

2. Paraphrasing, but I've personally turned down jobs that were in this vein, specifically writing IE HTML in Visual Studio, because if their browser share is 80% IE, they might as well use the IDE from the company that makes the browser.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#22

Post by chc » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:49 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #16

Is it just me, or are that others that think "Didn't it support that yet?!" at every IE release? I don't use Windows so I never use IE anymore, but I'd think IE9 or 10 would support WebGL by now...

WebGL was bleeding-edge when IE 9 was released, and there were still very valid concerns about its security for a while after that. Opera implemented it, but disabled it due to these concerns. After their nightmarish history with security, Microsoft are very focused on hardening Windows — so I wouldn't exactly call it regressive to leave WebGL out of IE 10, which was probably feature-frozen in early 2012.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#23

Post by dman » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:51 PM UTC

judah wrote: post #4

Credit to Microsoft for reversing their previous stance on WebGL. Credit to Mozilla for pushing 3d on the web and forcing the issue. Any browser that doesn't implement WebGL will soon be considered crippled; Microsoft desperately wants to avoid that title again, so in a way, Mozilla forced their hand. Competition at work.

I am surprised they didnt try to push a webdx based off directx.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#24

Post by bliker » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:54 PM UTC

the dev tools look promising. But I do not understand what are they are trying to achieve by this. I do not see myself, or many people, switching to IE for development when there are no extensions available. I at least want some REST client like Postman. Now It appears they are only catching up on Chrome and Firebug, that will hardly convince anybody.

Do not get me wrong, they are doing good work making IE modern browser, But they can't do it alone, especially with such long release cycle. Maybe making dev branch like Canary or Aurora?

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#25

Post by gsnedders » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:54 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #23

judah wrote: post #4

Credit to Microsoft for reversing their previous stance on WebGL. Credit to Mozilla for pushing 3d on the web and forcing the issue. Any browser that doesn't implement WebGL will soon be considered crippled; Microsoft desperately wants to avoid that title again, so in a way, Mozilla forced their hand. Competition at work.

I am surprised they didnt try to push a webdx based off directx.

MS have done little to push the IE team around in recent years, thankfully.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#26

Post by judah » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:55 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #16

Is it just me, or are that others that think "Didn't it support that yet?!" at every IE release? I don't use Windows so I never use IE anymore, but I'd think IE9 or 10 would support WebGL by now...

Additionally, Microsoft was on record saying they believed plugins like Silverlight provided sufficient 3d capabilities, and that WebGL was huge surface area for security vulnerabilities.

They've apparently reversed that stance.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#27

Post by Already__Taken » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:56 PM UTC

mzarate06 wrote: post #14

Love the improved dev tools and WebGL decision, but I also hate how long it's taken MS to reach this point. Would also love for IE 11 to be available on Windows 7.

So far it's at least safe to assume MS support current and previous releases. As this is a feature pack to w8 and not w9 I should be ok so assume ie11 will see w7.

But who knows, MS seem to think ie is some carrot to lure people to them. It could as such be crippled to w8.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#28

Post by gsnedders » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 10:57 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #22

lucb1e wrote: post #16

Is it just me, or are that others that think "Didn't it support that yet?!" at every IE release? I don't use Windows so I never use IE anymore, but I'd think IE9 or 10 would support WebGL by now...

WebGL was bleeding-edge when IE 9 was released, and there were still very valid concerns about its security for a while after that. Opera implemented it, but disabled it due to these concerns. After their nightmarish history with security, Microsoft are very focused on hardening Windows — so I wouldn't exactly call it regressive to leave WebGL out of IE 10, which was probably feature-frozen in early 2012.

Opera didn't disable it due to security concerns per se — rather more just the general bugginess of Opera's hardware acceleration. I wouldn't consider crash bugs in general security issues. Equally, there is software rendered mode, but it's pointlessly slow to enable.

Note the prior concerns are still just as true today as they were a few years ago — graphics drivers are still relatively easy to find crash bugs in, leading browser vendors to try and hack around and avoid hitting those bugs in all too many cases. :(

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#29

Post by nivla » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 11:00 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #20

nivla wrote: post #18

Love the new changes in IE and the direction it is taking. >IE11 allow you to turn off the SmartScreen filter right in the download UI. Now only if chrome would do that I can keep myself from switching away from it. Its frustrating to know that everytime I download a file or save an image, the file hash, IP and the download URL is sent to Google. The whole NSA thing isn't making it better either. [1][2] [1] http://su…

You can turn off the "Safe Browsing" features in Chromium; your link [2] explicitly says how to do so.

I know but that also turns off the malware links protection. I don't mind the malware site/link protection since it only sends in a small part of the URL's hash for matching (similar to how we have in Firefox). Comparatively, the file scanner requires the whole hash of the file, the clear text of the download URL and the IP address which I find far more intrusive to privacy. I am hoping for a future update where they would let us enable/disable them individually.

Re: IE11 to support WebGL

#30

Post by dman » Tue, Jun 25, 2013, 11:00 PM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #25

dman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised they didnt try to push a webdx based off directx.

MS have done little to push the IE team around in recent years, thankfully.

Sounds great - theres so much talent locked away at Microsoft if only business models werent getting in the way.