Duncan ... you care to explain ? | The Coffeehouse

Zeus
Why is the caption missing??

Duncanma wrote:
just finished shipping code to Channel 9 that makes me feel dirty... first time in this group I've deployed code that I strongly objected to 12:53 AM January 19, 2008 from web

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

I wonder if this is related.

Some Anti-Silverlight or Anti-Firefox conspiracy doing the rounds?

irascian
Irascible Ian

Shouldn't you guys be discussing this offline?

I know C9 is all about being more "open" and all, but really there are times when washing dirty laundry should be done in private (or using the original launderette, not moved to the big flash one where everyone can see in the windows and there are security cameras recording everything going on).

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

I just read this page and was wondering why Silverlight was broken and most of the pages wouldn't load, and I was about to give up in dispair when I realized I'd disabled Javascript for Firefox last night.

While this means bad kudos on me rather than you, it's pretty shocking how much of this site simply doesn't work when Javascript is gone.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

evildictaitor wrote:
I just read this page and was wondering why Silverlight was broken and most of the pages wouldn't load, and I was about to give up in dispair when I realized I'd disabled Javascript for Firefox last night.

While this means bad kudos on me rather than you, it's pretty shocking how much of this site simply doesn't work when Javascript is gone.

The C9 guys have stated, repeatedly, in messenger conversations with me, that client scripting is a requirement for visitors since they cannot cost-justify development of a non-scripted version.

I don't think this is related. Duncan actually works on the "backend" stuff, Erk (HumanCompiler) works on the frontend.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

W3bbo wrote:

The C9 guys have stated, repeatedly, in messenger conversations with me, that client scripting is a requirement for visitors since they cannot cost-justify development of a non-scripted version.

A requirement for the videos and forum editing, maybe, but for getting to a specific page in a multipage thread? No. I like being able to open a page in tabs, and their abuse of __doPostBack breaks it for me.

And the worst part? They already have the mechnism to get rid of it.

Inside a multipage thread (e.g. this one) the code to move the page 2 is javascript:__doPostBack('template$_ctl0$PostThroneView$_ctl0$Pager1$2','').

But from the main forum thread page, it's the non-javascripted:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=2&PostID=374208#374208

(Note the PageIndex=2).

Now if they can't cost-justify replacing that because of the huge cost of rebuilding the backend, then frankly my view of their competence is somewhat reduced.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

evildictaitor wrote:

W3bbo wrote:
The C9 guys have stated, repeatedly, in messenger conversations with me, that client scripting is a requirement for visitors since they cannot cost-justify development of a non-scripted version.

A requirement for the videos and forum editing, maybe, but for getting to a specific page in a multipage thread? No. I like being able to open a page in tabs, and their abuse of __doPostBack breaks it for me.

And the worst part? They already have the mechnism to get rid of it.

Inside a multipage thread (e.g. this one) the code to move the page 2 is javascript:__doPostBack('template$_ctl0$PostThroneView$_ctl0$Pager1$2','').

But from the main forum thread page, it's the non-javascripted:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=2&PostID=374208#374208

(Note the PageIndex=2).

Now if they can't cost-justify replacing that because of the huge cost of rebuilding the backend, then frankly my view of their competence is somewhat reduced.

In this incarnation, it's brought about by the monolithic codebase of Community Server and their control library, they're bad at this sort of thing.

It would take too long to replace or redevelop it in a way Microsoft would approve of. So just keep quiet and wait for C9v4 before complaining.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

W3bbo wrote:

In this incarnation, it's brought about by the monolithic codebase of Community Server and their control library, they're bad at this sort of thing.

It would take too long to replace or redevelop it in a way Microsoft would approve of. So just keep quiet and wait for C9v4 before complaining.

Right. That's scheduled here to happen after they invent the pig-jet pack, global cooling hits all of hell and the second, third and fourth coming of Christ.

How long have we been waiting for C9 v4 now? Why can't they just fix this one?

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

evildictaitor wrote:

W3bbo wrote:
In this incarnation, it's brought about by the monolithic codebase of Community Server and their control library, they're bad at this sort of thing.

It would take too long to replace or redevelop it in a way Microsoft would approve of. So just keep quiet and wait for C9v4 before complaining.

Right. That's scheduled here to happen after they invent the pig-jet pack, global cooling hits all of hell and the second, third and fourth coming of Christ.

How long have we been waiting for C9 v4 now? Why can't they just fix this one?

A while ago, HumanCompiler posed a challenge to me: that if I was able to hack into the C9 servers, Microsoft would take what I had to say seriously (or words to the effect of). (yes, I have the chatlogs to prove it).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have hatched a plot to root the C9 web farm servers. However I'll need $500, a Skype account, and 8-10 business days.

/seriously
//yarly

Lloyd_Humph
If Blackberrys are addictive cellphones, Channel9 is the ultimate addictive website.

W3bbo wrote:

A while ago, HumanCompiler posed a challenge to me: that if I was able to hack into the C9 servers, Microsoft would take what I had to say seriously (or words to the effect of). (yes, I have the chatlogs to prove it).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have hatched a plot to root the C9 web farm servers. However I'll need $500, a Skype account, and 8-10 business days.

/seriously
//yarly

Go for it

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

CompGuy101 wrote:
[quote user="W3bbo"][quote user="evildictaitor"]W3bbo wrote:In this incarnation, it's brought about by the monolithic codebase of Community Server and their control library, they're bad at this sort of thing.It would take too long to replace or redevelop it in a way Microsoft would approve of. So just keep quiet and wait for C9v4 before complaining.Right. That's scheduled here to happen after they invent the pig-jet pack, global cooling hits all of hell and the second, third and fourth coming of Christ.How long have we been waiting for C9 v4 now? Why can't they just fix this one?[ /quote]A while ago, HumanCompiler posed a challenge to me: that if I was able to hack into the C9 servers, Microsoft would take what I had to say seriously (or words to the effect of). (yes, I have the chatlogs to prove it).Ladies and Gentlemen, I have hatched a plot to root the C9 web farm servers. However I'll need $500, a Skype account, and 8-10 business days./seriously//yarly[ /quote] $500 for what? Perhaps we should donate if you really need the money. Wouldnt you be hacking into orcasweb or whatever instead of microsoft?

If you're on Safari, enable the Debug menu and change your User Agent to Firefox 2... the rich text editor will work right then.

If you're on Opera, you're just screwed.

On topic, I'd be wary of hacking into C9, even if the developers said you could. You have no assurance from OrcsWeb that they wouldn't pursue legal action against you (and I don't know if Erik's word is good enough to protect you, with OrcsWeb being a separate company and all).

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

irascian wrote:
Shouldn't you guys be discussing this offline?

I agree. We've all got to have a place where we can go and vent. And if there's somebody waiting to bring in our trash and show it to the family it really isn't helpful.

Besides, Duncan was probably refering to the following:

body.c9v4 {
background-color: brown;
}

Smiley

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
On topic, I'd be wary of hacking into C9, even if the developers said you could. You have no assurance from OrcsWeb that they wouldn't pursue legal action against you (and I don't know if Erik's word is good enough to protect you, with OrcsWeb being a separate company and all).

I know, that's why I have zero intention of proceeding.

That said, I did test out my planned approach on my own dedicated servers, and it worked. (btw, it was a technical approach, not social-engineering or anything) but since it relied on the way the company operates, it might not work with OrcsWeb, so it would be a lost $500, hence me not willing to put my money on the line Wink

Still, if/when I get my arse in through the door at MS(R) I'll get into it through the official channels, without actually telling Erik I'm an employee Wink

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

You guys have too much time on your hands. [A] Go write something cool. Smiley

Duncanma
Just Coding for Fun...

W3bbo wrote:
I wonder if this is related.

Some Anti-Silverlight or Anti-Firefox conspiracy doing the rounds?

Nope, nothing to do with that... the change I shipped out was only on the home page. And due to some CSS styling issues in IE7 it was rolled back at this point.

There is definitely no Anti- anything conspiracy Smiley

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

Duncanma wrote:

W3bbo wrote: I wonder if this is related.

Some Anti-Silverlight or Anti-Firefox conspiracy doing the rounds?

Nope, nothing to do with that... the change I shipped out was only on the home page. And due to some CSS styling issues in IE7 it was rolled back at this point.

There is definitely no Anti- anything conspiracy

And C9v4 will come out when I'm ready.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

Duncanma wrote:
There is definitely no Anti- anything conspiracy

But that's what you'd say if there was a conspiracy!

Also with the javascripty nonsense, please fix it. It makes everyone's lives better. What's the point of IE having tabs if channel9 goes and makes a site that deliberately prevents you from using them?

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

@ScanIAm:

I know your views on religion, but for someone who self-proclaimedly doesn't care about anyone else's views and wants to keep religion out of C9, I think you ought to change your avatar and caption.

It's inflamatory, and against the C9 terms and conditions.

I'm just asking nicely here before other people start asking less nicely.

Cheers.

ScanIAm
On a scale of 1 to 10, people are stupid.

evildictaitor wrote:
@ScanIAm:

I know your views on religion, but for someone who self-proclaimedly doesn't care about anyone else's views and wants to keep religion out of C9, I think you ought to change your avatar and caption.

It's inflamatory, and against the C9 terms and conditions.

I'm just asking nicely here before other people start asking less nicely.

Cheers.

Really?

Thanks so much for your input.

I'm gaining much from your unsolicited input.

Obviously, my views on religion are incorrect, and now, my personal style is lacking.

Seriously: Your knowledge of some of the topics we discuss is formidable, and I'm quite encouraged, at times, to hear what you have to say about a wide variety of issues, but if you ever, for one minute, think I give a sh*t about your opinion on my religious views or my avatar, you are sadly mistaken.

m'kay?

good.

Duncanma
Just Coding for Fun...

Zeus wrote:
From Twitter:

Duncanma wrote: just finished shipping code to Channel 9 that makes me feel dirty... first time in this group I've deployed code that I strongly objected to 12:53 AM January 19, 2008 from web

To explain, and avoid ongoing speculation, I posted some code that checks if the user has Silverlight and *if they don't and they are on a browser that supports Silverlight* then it shows them a modal dialog asking them to go an install it.

MSDN is already doing this, as is ASP.NET, Silverlight.NET, IIS.NET, and many others... so from some points of view we aren't doing anything all that odd... but it still bothers me. It seems like a pop-up ad, when we already show you the 'install now' option in place of the player if you don't have Silverlight installed. It doesn't bother me an enormous amount, it isn't something to quit over or anything like that, but it still seems wrong.

Most of you won't see this, assuming you already have it installed, or if you do see it... it goes away with a click and won't come back for a long time.

If you want to see it now, since I took it away from our site at the moment (it just won't float right in IE for some reason!!!), hit IIS.NET or Silverlight.NET or MSDN2 on some machine that doesn't have Silverlight but could (so IE on Windows, Firefox on intel based macs, etc...)

As to why did I twitter this... well that is a good question. I was planning a long post last night explaining my thoughts on why we did this and why we shouldn't do this... but when we couldn't get it working right and had to roll it back I ended up delaying the longer post, leaving the twitter to stand alone unexplained. I also must admit that I wasn't really thinking anyone would notice a twitter post from me Smiley

Duncanma
Just Coding for Fun...

evildictaitor wrote:
Also with the javascripty nonsense, please fix it. It makes everyone's lives better. What's the point of IE having tabs if channel9 goes and makes a site that deliberately prevents you from using them?

Not sure about the connection with tabs... but we are actually working on making the site work reasonably well without javascript, the new site that is... definitely viewing posts and paging are things that should work without scripting. Doubt we'll get video support without script (Silverlight is 100% useless without script as far as I know), but we should be able to make it a 'click to play' style experience.

And, to answer the follow up question, we are getting fairly close to deploying the v4 code to C9... Sampy and Erik did a ton of work to get the new Wiki code done last week, now we are moving onto to the Sandbox (support for uploading files, user tagging, etc...)

We even have a fairly major editor upgrade in the works (for comments, new threads, etc...)...

at the same time we've been working with someone who is a frequent contributor to the W3C and is helping us to make the site more accessible (which incorporates many things, but working better without script is one of them).

harumscarum
out of memory

Duncanma wrote:

Zeus wrote: From Twitter:

Duncanma wrote: just finished shipping code to Channel 9 that makes me feel dirty... first time in this group I've deployed code that I strongly objected to 12:53 AM January 19, 2008 from web

To explain, and avoid ongoing speculation, I posted some code that checks if the user has Silverlight and *if they don't and they are on a browser that supports Silverlight* then it shows them a modal dialog asking them to go an install it.

Ahh I caught this last week when visiting a MS site and thought it was obnoxious. What really annoyed me is that if your browser window is not fully maximized the "close" icon in this window is not seen.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

ScanIAm wrote:

Obviously, my views on religion are incorrect, and now, my personal style is lacking.

I couldn't care less about whether they are correct or not. This is not the point of my request. My point is that it is both religous and designed to invoke hatred.

Consequently it has no place on Channel9.

ScanIAm wrote:

but if you ever, for one minute, think I give a sh*t about your opinion on my religious views or my avatar, you are sadly mistaken.

I like lots of your avatars. But let's keep religion out of C9. Mkay? Good.

And if you think that it's none of my business then we have to start looking at the C9 code of conduct, specifically under the "no hatred" section.

Thanks.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

Duncanma wrote:

Not sure about the connection with tabs... but we are actually working on making the site work reasonably well without javascript, the new site that is... definitely viewing posts and paging are things that should work without scripting. Doubt we'll get video support without script (Silverlight is 100% useless without script as far as I know), but we should be able to make it a 'click to play' style experience.

My point about tabs is that you can't right click a javascript link and "Open in New Tab", since this functionality is designed for opening new pages, whereas javascript is designed for modifying the current page. By disguising new page requests (e.g. the page selection in multipage threads) as javascript links, you prevent both IE and firefox from opening multiple pages in tabs, something that I often do when reading the forum.

Duncanma
Just Coding for Fun...

evildictaitor wrote:

My point about tabs is that you can't right click a javascript link and "Open in New Tab", since this functionality is designed for opening new pages, whereas javascript is designed for modifying the current page.

Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.