IE8 - Just Do It Already, but WHY? | The Coffeehouse

nosajis

Point #1: Microsoft has certainly never received any money from me for using Internet Explorer.

Point #2: Just make the browser do everything so I can please stop listening to people whine about what IE doesn't do and firefox/opera/whatever does. Just do it already.

___

So here's the deal. They don't seem to get much for money from IE so I'm not sure why this would make any business sense, but I wish MS would grab some extra resources and just make IE king of the bloody mountain already.

Is this really so hard? Does it come down to the fact that there isn't any money in it? So often they seem to do just enough to get by. I know some people think it is cool to be anti-microsoft and what not, but listening to it just gets old and some times I just want Microsoft to buckle down and punch somebody in the mouth.

A first target for a right hook? I'll leave that up to a general vote.

DigitalDud

Agreed, IE needs to be the balls-to-walls browser that shuts up the annoying Firefox furries once and for all.

nosajis

Thank you, very well put, I think that was much simpler than my previous post and exactly what I wanted to say the first time.

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

DigitalDud wrote:

Agreed, IE needs to be the balls-to-walls browser that shuts up the annoying Firefox furries once and for all.

It's not likely to be that, unless MS has a change of heart and implements equivalents to the various -moz and -webkit CSS3 properties already available in Firefox and Safari.

I'd love IE8 to have multiple backgrounds, border radius, opacity, columns, and a few of the other CSS3 extensions that the other's already have... but I'm not holding my breath.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

Bass wrote:
I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

I think I'll have to agree with that. At this point, Microsoft's too far behind to make any real progress against Firefox... Microsoft's not making any money directly off IE, so why not bundle Firefox (and contribute to Firefox/the Mozilla project) rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

harumscarum
out of memory

MS has just a couple more customers so it is just not that easy.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

harumscarum wrote:
MS has just a couple more customers so it is just not that easy.

They can still keep the Trident engine around for backward compatibility.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

Bass wrote:I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

I think I'll have to agree with that. At this point, Microsoft's too far behind to make any real progress against Firefox... Microsoft's not making any money directly off IE, so why not bundle Firefox (and contribute to Firefox/the Mozilla project) rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

Are you kidding, its definitely work, but its not that difficult for a company like Microsoft to program something like Firefox. If they really wanted to, they could release a clone of Firefox in a few months. Do you really think it was hard to add tabs to IE7?

IE is not Firefox for a lot of other reasons.

nosajis

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

Saying IE is "years" behind seems to be a little over-hype of firefox in my opinion. I think each of them has strength and weakness, but this seems like a bit of an unsubstantiated claim.

nosajis

brian.shapiro wrote:
Are you kidding, its definitely work, but its not that difficult for a company like Microsoft to program something like Firefox. If they really wanted to, they could release a clone of Firefox in a few months. Do you really think it was hard to add tabs to IE7?

IE is not Firefox for a lot of other reasons.

I supect with the proper allocation of resources anything is possible. However, if it is as simple as you make it sound I refer to my original post and ask again, what's the hold, just do it already.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

brian.shapiro wrote:

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
Bass wrote:I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

I think I'll have to agree with that. At this point, Microsoft's too far behind to make any real progress against Firefox... Microsoft's not making any money directly off IE, so why not bundle Firefox (and contribute to Firefox/the Mozilla project) rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

Are you kidding, its definitely work, but its not that difficult for a company like Microsoft to program something like Firefox. If they really wanted to, they could release a clone of Firefox in a few months. Do you really think it was hard to add tabs to IE7?

IE is not Firefox for a lot of other reasons.

Then why is it still behind? Why are we a year and a half out from the release of IE7 and only at the first beta of IE8, which is implementing standards that have been working in released versions of other browsers since before the release of IE7? Why is IE still missing basic functionality like inline search and a download manager? Why is performance still subpar (try concatenating some strings sometime)?

Maybe it's something about the IE team's philosophy about making changes that keeps them from catching up... I'm not on the IE team and don't get to make the decisions. It just seems to me that it's a little ridiculous that IE's so far behind FF and they don't appear to have any intention of catching up (if IE8 Beta 1 is any indication).

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

I thought that IE was a dependency of Windows, even if not used as the browser app ?? Which means that replacing IE with FF is not really an option, as they'd still need to work on IE.

Perhaps Windows-7 might offer the opportunity to jettison that level of dependency, but I doubt they would ever drop IE in favour of FF, just as I doubt Apple would ever choose FF over Safari.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

brian.shapiro wrote:
CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
Bass wrote:I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

I think I'll have to agree with that. At this point, Microsoft's too far behind to make any real progress against Firefox... Microsoft's not making any money directly off IE, so why not bundle Firefox (and contribute to Firefox/the Mozilla project) rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

Are you kidding, its definitely work, but its not that difficult for a company like Microsoft to program something like Firefox. If they really wanted to, they could release a clone of Firefox in a few months. Do you really think it was hard to add tabs to IE7?

IE is not Firefox for a lot of other reasons.

Then why is it still behind? Why are we a year and a half out from the release of IE7 and only at the first beta of IE8, which is implementing standards that have been working in released versions of other browsers since before the release of IE7? Why is IE still missing basic functionality like inline search and a download manager? Why is performance still subpar (try concatenating some strings sometime)?

Maybe it's something about the IE team's philosophy about making changes that keeps them from catching up... I'm not on the IE team and don't get to make the decisions. It just seems to me that it's a little ridiculous that IE's so far behind FF and they don't appear to have any intention of catching up (if IE8 Beta 1 is any indication).

If you're talking about standards, then you know why. Its because Microsoft doesn't want to break the web.

If you're talking about things like inline search and the download manager, these are about the easiest things they could program. I bet most programmers who chat on this forum could program them. Maybe Microsoft wants you to download the Live Toolbar (which has an inline search feature). I don't know---

Microsoft might need to straighten itself out on this, but its nothing that Microsoft using Firefox instead of IE would solve.

If you're talking about performance, you should also ask why its taken Mozilla so long to deal with memory problems in Firefox.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

brian.shapiro wrote:

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
brian.shapiro wrote:
CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
Bass wrote:I disagree. Microsoft should just drop Internet Explorer and bundle Mozilla Firefox with Windows. Microsoft needs to get over this NIH crap and just use whatever is the best solution.

I think I'll have to agree with that. At this point, Microsoft's too far behind to make any real progress against Firefox... Microsoft's not making any money directly off IE, so why not bundle Firefox (and contribute to Firefox/the Mozilla project) rather than leaving customers with a product that's years behind in terms of functionality?

Are you kidding, its definitely work, but its not that difficult for a company like Microsoft to program something like Firefox. If they really wanted to, they could release a clone of Firefox in a few months. Do you really think it was hard to add tabs to IE7?

IE is not Firefox for a lot of other reasons.

Then why is it still behind? Why are we a year and a half out from the release of IE7 and only at the first beta of IE8, which is implementing standards that have been working in released versions of other browsers since before the release of IE7? Why is IE still missing basic functionality like inline search and a download manager? Why is performance still subpar (try concatenating some strings sometime)?

Maybe it's something about the IE team's philosophy about making changes that keeps them from catching up... I'm not on the IE team and don't get to make the decisions. It just seems to me that it's a little ridiculous that IE's so far behind FF and they don't appear to have any intention of catching up (if IE8 Beta 1 is any indication).

If you're talking about standards, then you know why. Its because Microsoft doesn't want to break the web.

Well it looks that they are pushing for standards complience now, so this idea is outdated. Plus I don't know how following standards would "break the web", if anything it would enchance the web.

brian.shapiro wrote:

If you're talking about things like inline search and the download manager, these are about the easiest things they could program. I bet most programmers who chat on this forum could program them. Maybe Microsoft wants you to download the Live Toolbar (which has an inline search feature). I don't know---

Microsoft might need to straighten itself out on this, but its nothing that Microsoft using Firefox instead of IE would solve.

Using Firefox instead of IE means they can reassign the many resources they already have on IE to other projects (like Windows 7) that make more business sense.

brian.shapiro wrote:

If you're talking about performance, you should also ask why its taken Mozilla so long to deal with memory problems in Firefox.

Because making web browsers is hard. It's not as easy as you make it seem. Mozilla took hundreds of programmers over many years to get as far as they are.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

Bass wrote:

Because making web browsers is hard. It's not as easy as you make it seem. Mozilla took hundreds of programmers over many years to get as far as they are.

The hard part is the rendering engine. The interface and things like tabs, download managers, and inline search are the easy part.

Microsoft is still trying to avoid breaking the web by how it handles standards mode in IE8.

Firefox isn't a perfect browser either.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

brian.shapiro wrote:

Bass wrote:
Because making web browsers is hard. It's not as easy as you make it seem. Mozilla took hundreds of programmers over many years to get as far as they are.

The hard part is the rendering engine. The interface and things like tabs, download managers, and inline search are the easy part.

Microsoft is still trying to avoid breaking the web by how it handles standards mode in IE8.

Firefox isn't a perfect browser either.

Microsoft has an entire *team* of developers who work on just that (the UI) of Internet Explorer. So does Mozilla. It's not "easy" in any way. These are highly skilled (and well paid) people who spend their full time on just this single aspect of the browser.

I don't see where you are getting this "breaking the web" thing from. Internet Explorer is "breaking the web" by not following standards in the first place. And IE8 will be much stricter to standards, and "standards mode" will be default in IE8. So they are improving but they are playing catch up at best.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

Bass wrote:

Microsoft has an entire *team* of developers who work on just that (the UI) of Internet Explorer. So does Mozilla. It's not some hobby software project.

I don't see where you are getting this "breaking the web" thing from. Internet Explorer is "breaking the web" by not following standards in the first place. And IE8 will be much stricter to standards, and "standards mode" will be default in IE8. So they are improving but they are playing catch up at best.

It doesn't mean it needs to take them months and months to code a download manager, or inline search, or tabs, hobby software project or not. And it doesn't. Thats why they have inline search on the Live toolbar. I bet they coded the tabbed interface pretty quickly.

Everything else about the UI is bureaucratic.

Why do you think its taken so long for Microsoft to be as strict as they're going to be on standards? Because they didn't want people complaining that websites that were viewable in IE6 but weren't web complaint were broken. That's what it means, they're doing a transition. Mozilla is concerned about this also but they don't have to be as careful, because of their position on the market.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

brian.shapiro wrote:

Bass wrote:
Microsoft has an entire *team* of developers who work on just that (the UI) of Internet Explorer. So does Mozilla. It's not some hobby software project.

I don't see where you are getting this "breaking the web" thing from. Internet Explorer is "breaking the web" by not following standards in the first place. And IE8 will be much stricter to standards, and "standards mode" will be default in IE8. So they are improving but they are playing catch up at best.

It doesn't mean it needs to take them months and months to code a download manager, or inline search, or tabs, hobby software project or not. And it doesn't. Thats why they have inline search on the Live toolbar. I bet they coded the tabbed interface pretty quickly.

Everything else about the UI is bureaucratic.

Why do you think its taken so long for Microsoft to be as strict as they're going to be on standards? Because they didn't want people complaining that websites that were viewable in IE6 but weren't web complaint were broken. That's what it means, they're doing a transition. Mozilla is concerned about this also but they don't have to be as careful, because of their position on the market.

It may very well take them months and months to code. They are writing software that is going to be on millions of computers, and they aren't using high level tools like the visual designers or .NET you might be accustomed to. Plus they have to make sure all the 3rd party tools built around IE don't just break because of the UI changes. But like you, is assumption, the reality is there is quite a lot of manpower assigned to just this one "easy" aspect of the browser. May I ask how many browser UI's you've coded?

I've never encountered a site that didn't work (or even render properly) in Firefox for years. But there are a lot of sites now that are coded to W3C standards (you can notice the validation tags they often show on their page), so IE may not render these pages properly until it also gets to that level of standards support. Even popular sites like Digg do not render properly on IE6.

Other sites may code workarounds specific to IE, but this is unpopular with web developers. The goal should be to get to a point where if your site W3C validates, you shouldn't have to worry about browser specific quarks. If this happens it will greatly increase developer productivity in one of the most important fields of development today.

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

Technical arguments are pretty much beside the point.

The chances that MS would abandon such a high-profile component as IE, in favour of an OSS alternative... are fairly remote I’d have thought.

If they really wanted to go down the FF road, they would more likely buy Mozilla.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

Bass wrote:

It may very well take them months and months to code. They are writing software that is going to be on millions of computers, and they aren't using high level tools like the visual designers or .NET you might be accustomed to. Plus they have to make sure all the 3rd party tools built around IE don't just break because of the UI changes. But like you, is assumption, the reality is there is quite a lot of manpower assigned to just this one "easy" aspect of the browser. May I ask how many browser UI's you've coded?

I've coded without high level tools, I'm not sure why you assume I haven't, and something like a download manager wouldn't break any third party tools. But the designers at MS have to go through committee processes deciding what design changes to approve and what not to approve, which extends the time it takes to make software. If they do decide to make a download manager, I doubt it will be more than one person coding it though.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

elmer wrote:
Technical arguments are pretty much beside the point.

The chances that MS would abandon such a high-profile component as IE, in favour of an OSS alternative... are fairly remote I’d have thought.

If they really wanted to go down the FF road, they would more likely buy Mozilla.

It would be pretty hard (impossible?) to buy Mozilla at any dollar amount since it's the Mozilla (the Foundation) who owns all the trademarks and rights is actually a non-profit corporation. Even so, they couldn't close the source since Firefox is owned by many different developers outside of Mozilla (even you could submit a "patch", and you'd still own the copyright on it).

Besides, whats so bad about OSS? Doesn't Microsoft have their own OSS lab? Microsoft even recently held a event about open source (open to MSFT developers) on campus and they had so many people show up it suprised the hell out of most people.

JChung2006

nosajis wrote:
Point #1: Microsoft has certainly never received any money from me for using Internet Explorer.

If you paid for Windows, you paid for Internet Explorer, too. The only way your point is correct is for the Mac and UNIX versions of IE, and both of those projects are dead code these days.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

brian.shapiro wrote:
If they do decide to make a download manager, I doubt it will be more than one person coding it though.

Then there's the dozens of people necessary for testing, QA, documentation and localization of that feature.

elmer
I'm on my very last life.

Bass wrote:

elmer wrote: Technical arguments are pretty much beside the point.

The chances that MS would abandon such a high-profile component as IE, in favour of an OSS alternative... are fairly remote I’d have thought.

If they really wanted to go down the FF road, they would more likely buy Mozilla.

It would be pretty hard (impossible?) to buy Mozilla at any dollar amount since it's the Mozilla (the Foundation) who owns all the trademarks and rights is actually a non-profit corporation. Even so, they couldn't close the source since Firefox is owned by many different developers outside of Mozilla (even you could submit a "patch", and you'd still own the copyright on it).

Besides, whats so bad about OSS? Doesn't Microsoft have their own OSS lab? Microsoft even recently held a event about open source (open to MSFT developers) on campus and they had so many people show up it suprised the hell out of most people.

*SIGH* - I'm not suggesting the MS would want to buy Mozilla... just using that comment to illustrate how unlikely it is that they would replace IE with FF.