3 ms·

I'd say IE5.5. All those dHTML shit, like DirectX, MIDI, .htc (Javascript Components), <img dynsrc> for videos, a sane CSS box model, css and inter-page transf

by est 9y ago

I'd say IE5.5. All those dHTML shit, like DirectX, MIDI, .htc (Javascript Components), <img dynsrc> for videos, a sane CSS box model, css and inter-page transformations, VML for vector graphics, VRML for VR (buzzword), XML islands (influenced e4x and later JSX), the original xhr object, native cryto APIs, etc. You can even program jscript on server side with asp, or execute standalone with ActiveScript, even control native GUI like customizing your folder, the browser can be morphed to the file explorer. You can make apps with few kb of jscript unlike 55MB electron install bundle. The Windows help files (CHM) are like thousand years better than macOS counterparts and linux man files. CHM was the de facto ebook format back then and it works really well with features like indexable topics and full text search. We now have to use devdocs.io or dash. yes it has its quirks and worms, but it was way ahead of its time.

killercup 9y ago
Wow that all sounds awesome! Can you link to the Github repos with the code and spec? </sarcasms> 
- est 9y ago
  Generally, reading MSDN docs is a much nicer experience than reading most OSS sources, or specs, not to mention collecting workarounds from the ocean of issue tracker comments. However I do agree OSS is important and great, especially when times that you do need to debug & trace into source code. Disclaimer: I have't developed around M$ platform for 10+ years now, not sure if the situation has changed
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    The situation sure changed a lot. I'd blindly disagree if you say that Windows Server (or azure) development has more and better docs than Linux. And MSDN platform performs very poorly imo compared with "comparable" OSS platforms like Github, Linux development, GNU development.
  - killercup 9y ago
    That was actually specific to the IE 5.5 feature set and that era's Microsoft in general. Microsoft has been doing some amazing stuff in the last years, with many of them being open source and community-driven.
  - zer00eyz 9y ago
    > Generally, reading MSDN docs is a much nicer experience than reading most OSS sources, or specs, not to mention collecting workarounds from the ocean of issue tracker comments. This is a big part of what helped PHP take off in my mind. The documentation was fantastic! In the early 2000's reading php docs online was going to give you tons of clues and hints if you bothered to look at them. EDIT: just for laughs I went and looked at the PHP manual. It still has some of the 13 year old references in there. That might be good or bad. I haven't spent much time with PHP in the last 3 years so YMMV. No one values good documentation as much as they should.
open-source-ux 9y ago
I'm a bit late to this discussion but wanted to add that Microsoft started developing desktop apps that were web-like in appearance and behaviour back in 2000 (e.g, MS Money). Here we are in 2017 and we've returned to the same idea. Here are Microsoft's Inductive User Interface (IUI) Guidelines from 2001: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997506.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997506.aspx "The IUI is a new user interface model that suggests how to make software applications simpler by breaking features into screens or pages that are easy to explain and understand. Microsoft has implemented this model in Microsoft Money 2000"

by est 9y ago

killercup 9y ago

Wow that all sounds awesome! Can you link to the Github repos with the code and spec? </sarcasms>

est 9y ago
Generally, reading MSDN docs is a much nicer experience than reading most OSS sources, or specs, not to mention collecting workarounds from the ocean of issue tracker comments. However I do agree OSS is important and great, especially when times that you do need to debug & trace into source code. Disclaimer: I have't developed around M$ platform for 10+ years now, not sure if the situation has changed
- owebmaster 9y ago
  The situation sure changed a lot. I'd blindly disagree if you say that Windows Server (or azure) development has more and better docs than Linux. And MSDN platform performs very poorly imo compared with "comparable" OSS platforms like Github, Linux development, GNU development.
- killercup 9y ago
  That was actually specific to the IE 5.5 feature set and that era's Microsoft in general. Microsoft has been doing some amazing stuff in the last years, with many of them being open source and community-driven.
- zer00eyz 9y ago
  > Generally, reading MSDN docs is a much nicer experience than reading most OSS sources, or specs, not to mention collecting workarounds from the ocean of issue tracker comments. This is a big part of what helped PHP take off in my mind. The documentation was fantastic! In the early 2000's reading php docs online was going to give you tons of clues and hints if you bothered to look at them. EDIT: just for laughs I went and looked at the PHP manual. It still has some of the 13 year old references in there. That might be good or bad. I haven't spent much time with PHP in the last 3 years so YMMV. No one values good documentation as much as they should.

open-source-ux 9y ago

I'm a bit late to this discussion but wanted to add that Microsoft started developing desktop apps that were web-like in appearance and behaviour back in 2000 (e.g, MS Money). Here we are in 2017 and we've returned to the same idea. Here are Microsoft's Inductive User Interface (IUI) Guidelines from 2001: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997506.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997506.aspx "The IUI is a new user interface model that suggests how to make software applications simpler by breaking features into screens or pages that are easy to explain and understand. Microsoft has implemented this model in Microsoft Money 2000"