3 ms·

If we're going to discuss this again, I might as well introduce an expression I didn't see in the last piece on HTML5 vs. Silverlight: "Embrace. Extend. Exting

If we're going to discuss this again, I might as well introduce an expression I didn't see in the last piece on HTML5 vs. Silverlight: "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish." Perhaps Microsoft embracing HTML5 is merely a return to their old strategy of luring customers into using their technologies in the hopes of introducing enough incompatibility over time that the "standard" becomes useless and dies?

pmjordan 16y ago
Doubt it. They'd have an easier time doing that by putting IE6 on life support indefinitely.
icey 16y ago
What have they extinguished so far?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Right now? Nothing, they're on the 'embrace' step. In the past? Lots of stuff. There's an entire wikipedia article on this phrase, here's the examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish#Examp...
  - icey 16y ago
    That's a good list; thanks for linking to it. I didn't realize that "Embrace, extend, extinguish" was a well known catchphrase already.
jcromartie 16y ago
I thought the same thing when I read this. However, I feel like they are not going to get very far with that strategy this time around. Most of the developers that I know are already suspicious of this kind of thing. The adoption of Firefox/Safari/Chrome (and near universal adoption among developers) has shown that Microsoft isn't really relevant in the browser market anymore and that open standards have won. I feel as if the only people susceptible to this anymore are either Microsoft fanboys or offshore/corporate drones.
TomOfTTB 16y ago
I don't think that's really true. Microsoft only tends to push incompatibilities AFTER it achieves dominance. For example, Internet Explorer was by far more standards compliant than Netscape (at least through version 5). Microsoft's problem, IMHO, is they compete in two different ways. The first is the "catch up to the competitor that's beating us" phase. In this phase they usually allow engineers more control of the process so they can iterate fast enough to over take a competitor. Think IE (Netscape), Office (Wordperfect), Windows NT (Novell/IBM), etc... Once they overtake a competitor the big company aspect takes over with "managers" wanting to (a) take credit for the success and (b) create "strategic plans" to cement the success. That's when you start to see incompatibilities (and other stupid management tricks like pulling IE from every platform other than Windows). So as someone who has watched Microsoft for a long time I feel confident in saying they'll produce fairly compliant tools right up to the point where they gain some success in the market.
- btilly 16y ago
  I don't think that's really true. Microsoft only tends to push incompatibilities AFTER it achieves dominance. For example, Internet Explorer was by far more standards compliant than Netscape (at least through version 5). That's not how I remember it. Microsoft pushed lots of incompatibilities that had no uptake. (VBScript anyone?) Microsoft added lots of extensions to the standard. Because Microsoft did a good job on them, many made it into the standard and so now look standards compliant. (XML-RPC anyone?) But from the point of view of cross-browser compatibility, they were bad news at the time.
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    I think you're remembering things from a Netscape perspective. For example you cite vbscript which was introduced a mere 8 months after Javascript (which was called livescript at the time to match Netscape Livewire). So they were competing technologies and not either side ignoring a standard (MS to their credit quickly rushed jscript out when Javascript started to become dominant) (Edit: I was curious so I looked it up. Javascript was implemented by Netscape in Dec. '95. MS implemented Jscript in Aug 1996. Javascript was adopted as the ECMAScript standard in June '97) As for extensions I don't think you can consider those incompatibilities. Both sides were doing it. Yet on the Netscape side they were actually taking parts of the standard and not implementing them (which is something the open source team had to straighten out after it was turned over: http://oreilly.com/news/flanagan_1100.html http://oreilly.com/news/flanagan_1100.html) You can even find old IE reviews that point out Microsoft was implementing standards far quicker (like this one I found via wikipedia: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/peripherals/671/internet-explorer-4 http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/peripherals/671/internet-expl...)

pmjordan 16y ago

Doubt it. They'd have an easier time doing that by putting IE6 on life support indefinitely.

icey 16y ago

What have they extinguished so far?

steveklabnik 16y ago
Right now? Nothing, they're on the 'embrace' step. In the past? Lots of stuff. There's an entire wikipedia article on this phrase, here's the examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish#Examp...
- icey 16y ago
  That's a good list; thanks for linking to it. I didn't realize that "Embrace, extend, extinguish" was a well known catchphrase already.

jcromartie 16y ago

I thought the same thing when I read this. However, I feel like they are not going to get very far with that strategy this time around. Most of the developers that I know are already suspicious of this kind of thing. The adoption of Firefox/Safari/Chrome (and near universal adoption among developers) has shown that Microsoft isn't really relevant in the browser market anymore and that open standards have won. I feel as if the only people susceptible to this anymore are either Microsoft fanboys or offshore/corporate drones.

TomOfTTB 16y ago

I don't think that's really true. Microsoft only tends to push incompatibilities AFTER it achieves dominance. For example, Internet Explorer was by far more standards compliant than Netscape (at least through version 5). Microsoft's problem, IMHO, is they compete in two different ways. The first is the "catch up to the competitor that's beating us" phase. In this phase they usually allow engineers more control of the process so they can iterate fast enough to over take a competitor. Think IE (Netscape), Office (Wordperfect), Windows NT (Novell/IBM), etc... Once they overtake a competitor the big company aspect takes over with "managers" wanting to (a) take credit for the success and (b) create "strategic plans" to cement the success. That's when you start to see incompatibilities (and other stupid management tricks like pulling IE from every platform other than Windows). So as someone who has watched Microsoft for a long time I feel confident in saying they'll produce fairly compliant tools right up to the point where they gain some success in the market.

btilly 16y ago
I don't think that's really true. Microsoft only tends to push incompatibilities AFTER it achieves dominance. For example, Internet Explorer was by far more standards compliant than Netscape (at least through version 5). That's not how I remember it. Microsoft pushed lots of incompatibilities that had no uptake. (VBScript anyone?) Microsoft added lots of extensions to the standard. Because Microsoft did a good job on them, many made it into the standard and so now look standards compliant. (XML-RPC anyone?) But from the point of view of cross-browser compatibility, they were bad news at the time.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  I think you're remembering things from a Netscape perspective. For example you cite vbscript which was introduced a mere 8 months after Javascript (which was called livescript at the time to match Netscape Livewire). So they were competing technologies and not either side ignoring a standard (MS to their credit quickly rushed jscript out when Javascript started to become dominant) (Edit: I was curious so I looked it up. Javascript was implemented by Netscape in Dec. '95. MS implemented Jscript in Aug 1996. Javascript was adopted as the ECMAScript standard in June '97) As for extensions I don't think you can consider those incompatibilities. Both sides were doing it. Yet on the Netscape side they were actually taking parts of the standard and not implementing them (which is something the open source team had to straighten out after it was turned over: http://oreilly.com/news/flanagan_1100.html http://oreilly.com/news/flanagan_1100.html) You can even find old IE reviews that point out Microsoft was implementing standards far quicker (like this one I found via wikipedia: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/peripherals/671/internet-explorer-4 http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/peripherals/671/internet-expl...)