3 ms·

> Isn't this arse about? Not entirely, for two reasons. 1. Supporting what's actually out there is at least as important as supporting what isn't out there ye

by gjm11 16y ago

> Isn't this arse about? Not entirely, for two reasons. 1. Supporting what's actually out there is at least as important as supporting what isn't out there yet because the browsers don't support it. 2. The very next sentence said: "We also spoke to developers and partners to understand what they were going do in the future and what they couldn't do today."

mgkimsal 16y ago
But.. 1. Part of 'what's out there' is still limited by attempts to remain compatible with IE6. Especially looking at the 'top X' sites. Yes, some sites are ignoring IE6 these days, but I bet when they started researching that wasn't the norm (and it's probably still not the norm today). 2. Spoke to developers and partners - yay. Except the majority 'partners' they speak with likely are very MS centric. This isn't a "MS devs are dumb" comment, but I speak with many people across multiple platforms, and there's a shocking lack of understanding (or even caring) about other platforms across the board. Many "mac only" devs don't know much about Windows, for example. If the majority of people they spoke with were MS partners, they're going to get a very skewed input base. Did they go out of their way to consult with anti-IE devs? Did they talk to Rails/Mac-based shops to see what they're doing? Did the reach out to Opera or user groups (if any exist)? "What they were going to do in the future" may have been dictated by their understanding of a future MS roadmap.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  "2. Spoke to developers and partners - yay. Except the majority 'partners' they speak with likely are very MS centric. This isn't a "MS devs are dumb" comment, but I speak with many people across multiple platforms, and there's a shocking lack of understanding (or even caring) about other platforms across the board. Many "mac only" devs don't know much about Windows, for example." You really don't think most strong web devs get the problems regardless of what their dev platform is? I'm sure IE's partners include folks from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and much smaller companies. I really have a hard time believing that they aren't getting pretty good feedback.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    They didn't say who the partners were - when I think of MS partners (in their own lingo) I think of MS-oriented developer shops. Those are the devs who are their partners - MSDN subscription shops, etc. When MS people speak of "partners", I'd be hard pressed to fin people who think of Apple, Google, Facebook or Yahoo. My suspicion is that much of the feedback (however constructive it might be) was from orgs who are primarily supportive of MS and IE, and as such, the feedback may not have been as useful as it could have been getting feedback from people about why they are not developing for IE. But time will tell on this re: adoption rate, standards compliance and whatever innovative stuff they throw in.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Well I'd expect that Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are MSDN subscribers. Its a lot cheaper to test with MSDN licenses than to buy retail. Exactly, who do you think the partners are for the IE team? I'd think the most popular webpages. This isn't the ASP.NET team or Silverlight team. For IE their partners are the companies they work with to make sure their sites work well with IE. I'd have to believe Facebook provides lots of feedback and Yahoo. Google probably some, but probably less so as their also a browser competitor. And certainly Fortune 500 enterprise internal sites. At least that's what I think when I hear the term partner for IE>
      - mgkimsal 16y ago
        I've never seen the term "IE partner" used anywhere, either in that doc or elsewhere. I have seen "MS Partner" used generically quite a lot over the years, meaning almost anyone who has any sort of business relationship (reseller, certified, etc) with MS. So... I don't think there are any "partners" for the "IE team". I think they reached out to a variety of Microsoft partners across the board. If they'd specifically talked to Google, Facebook, etc., I suspect they'd have dropped those names, either to pass blame or try to show group decisions on certain decisions ("Apple's doing this too!").
        16y ago
jacobolus 16y ago
Okay, but if you look, the only (stated) reason they’re now adding SVG, for example, is that “Acid3 is one of the sites that is frequently mentioned in the community.” It’s not like SVG is otherwise used all over the web. (Though it’s starting to be a little bit, and will be much more once IE supports it) As the browser with dominant usage share, Microsoft has (and had to a much greater extent 5 years ago) great power to hold new technologies back. For them to turn around and say “well, people don’t use those yet, so we decided they didn’t matter” is pretty rich. I think “arse about” is just the right description.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  While what you say may be true (that MS held back a technology due to lack of support), but at this point that's water under the bridge. Should MS go and other competing scripting technologies to their browser, including Java, which were marginalized due to their support of Javascript. I do get your point, but I don't think you can make forward looking technology decisions based on past actions, unless you think for some reason that if MS supported SVG fonts that they would suddently take off. I don't think they would.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    What? Water under the bridge? This is relevant for the immediate future of the web. They should support features like WebSocket, because to not do so will dramatically hold those features back. I’m glad they are supporting SVG.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Isn't the WebSocket spec still very much in progress? I think word from MS is that it may not be there at launch. But they seem to have taken a different take on this, which is wait for the spec, rather than this is outdated technology.
gjm11 16y ago
(In reply to both mgkimsal and jacobolus:) I'm not defending Microsoft's actions, nor the level of standards-compliance and modernity of IE9 as actually being delivered. I'm just saying that their description of their process -- see what's actually being used out there, and talk to a bunch of web developers about what they'd like to be added -- is perfectly sensible and not at all "arse about". Whether they're being honest in describing the process, and whether they're executing the process well, are completely separate questions.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  The thing is, most web developers don’t learn technologies which are not supported yet, authors don’t write books about them, neat abstractions aren’t built on top of them, etc. etc. So there’s this huge chicken-and-egg problem. For MS to say “we’ll start supporting this technology once you start using it”.... well....
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    IE9 is supporting virtually everything in the standard, and the standard isn't even finalized yet. It seems like you're the guy complaining that not everyone supports 'export', while ignoring all the rest that is supported.

by gjm11 16y ago

mgkimsal 16y ago

But.. 1. Part of 'what's out there' is still limited by attempts to remain compatible with IE6. Especially looking at the 'top X' sites. Yes, some sites are ignoring IE6 these days, but I bet when they started researching that wasn't the norm (and it's probably still not the norm today). 2. Spoke to developers and partners - yay. Except the majority 'partners' they speak with likely are very MS centric. This isn't a "MS devs are dumb" comment, but I speak with many people across multiple platforms, and there's a shocking lack of understanding (or even caring) about other platforms across the board. Many "mac only" devs don't know much about Windows, for example. If the majority of people they spoke with were MS partners, they're going to get a very skewed input base. Did they go out of their way to consult with anti-IE devs? Did they talk to Rails/Mac-based shops to see what they're doing? Did the reach out to Opera or user groups (if any exist)? "What they were going to do in the future" may have been dictated by their understanding of a future MS roadmap.

kenjackson 16y ago
"2. Spoke to developers and partners - yay. Except the majority 'partners' they speak with likely are very MS centric. This isn't a "MS devs are dumb" comment, but I speak with many people across multiple platforms, and there's a shocking lack of understanding (or even caring) about other platforms across the board. Many "mac only" devs don't know much about Windows, for example." You really don't think most strong web devs get the problems regardless of what their dev platform is? I'm sure IE's partners include folks from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and much smaller companies. I really have a hard time believing that they aren't getting pretty good feedback.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  They didn't say who the partners were - when I think of MS partners (in their own lingo) I think of MS-oriented developer shops. Those are the devs who are their partners - MSDN subscription shops, etc. When MS people speak of "partners", I'd be hard pressed to fin people who think of Apple, Google, Facebook or Yahoo. My suspicion is that much of the feedback (however constructive it might be) was from orgs who are primarily supportive of MS and IE, and as such, the feedback may not have been as useful as it could have been getting feedback from people about why they are not developing for IE. But time will tell on this re: adoption rate, standards compliance and whatever innovative stuff they throw in.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Well I'd expect that Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are MSDN subscribers. Its a lot cheaper to test with MSDN licenses than to buy retail. Exactly, who do you think the partners are for the IE team? I'd think the most popular webpages. This isn't the ASP.NET team or Silverlight team. For IE their partners are the companies they work with to make sure their sites work well with IE. I'd have to believe Facebook provides lots of feedback and Yahoo. Google probably some, but probably less so as their also a browser competitor. And certainly Fortune 500 enterprise internal sites. At least that's what I think when I hear the term partner for IE>
    - mgkimsal 16y ago
      I've never seen the term "IE partner" used anywhere, either in that doc or elsewhere. I have seen "MS Partner" used generically quite a lot over the years, meaning almost anyone who has any sort of business relationship (reseller, certified, etc) with MS. So... I don't think there are any "partners" for the "IE team". I think they reached out to a variety of Microsoft partners across the board. If they'd specifically talked to Google, Facebook, etc., I suspect they'd have dropped those names, either to pass blame or try to show group decisions on certain decisions ("Apple's doing this too!").
      - 16y ago

jacobolus 16y ago

Okay, but if you look, the only (stated) reason they’re now adding SVG, for example, is that “Acid3 is one of the sites that is frequently mentioned in the community.” It’s not like SVG is otherwise used all over the web. (Though it’s starting to be a little bit, and will be much more once IE supports it) As the browser with dominant usage share, Microsoft has (and had to a much greater extent 5 years ago) great power to hold new technologies back. For them to turn around and say “well, people don’t use those yet, so we decided they didn’t matter” is pretty rich. I think “arse about” is just the right description.

kenjackson 16y ago
While what you say may be true (that MS held back a technology due to lack of support), but at this point that's water under the bridge. Should MS go and other competing scripting technologies to their browser, including Java, which were marginalized due to their support of Javascript. I do get your point, but I don't think you can make forward looking technology decisions based on past actions, unless you think for some reason that if MS supported SVG fonts that they would suddently take off. I don't think they would.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  What? Water under the bridge? This is relevant for the immediate future of the web. They should support features like WebSocket, because to not do so will dramatically hold those features back. I’m glad they are supporting SVG.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Isn't the WebSocket spec still very much in progress? I think word from MS is that it may not be there at launch. But they seem to have taken a different take on this, which is wait for the spec, rather than this is outdated technology.

gjm11 16y ago

(In reply to both mgkimsal and jacobolus:) I'm not defending Microsoft's actions, nor the level of standards-compliance and modernity of IE9 as actually being delivered. I'm just saying that their description of their process -- see what's actually being used out there, and talk to a bunch of web developers about what they'd like to be added -- is perfectly sensible and not at all "arse about". Whether they're being honest in describing the process, and whether they're executing the process well, are completely separate questions.

jacobolus 16y ago
The thing is, most web developers don’t learn technologies which are not supported yet, authors don’t write books about them, neat abstractions aren’t built on top of them, etc. etc. So there’s this huge chicken-and-egg problem. For MS to say “we’ll start supporting this technology once you start using it”.... well....
- kenjackson 16y ago
  IE9 is supporting virtually everything in the standard, and the standard isn't even finalized yet. It seems like you're the guy complaining that not everyone supports 'export', while ignoring all the rest that is supported.