6 ms·

I think what's ironic is everyone claiming Microsoft was going to ruin the web back in the day and ended up supporting the very parties that actually did end up

by skc 8y ago

I think what's ironic is everyone claiming Microsoft was going to ruin the web back in the day and ended up supporting the very parties that actually did end up ruining the web.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment. Old IE really did hold back technological progress for a long time. Who knows where we’d be today if not for that.
- eli 8y ago
  They did a lot of things that weren't approved by a standards committee but many of them were genuinely progressive. You can draw a straight line from IE4's DHTML to today's modern web apps.
  - bulletsvshumans 8y ago
    It's worth remembering that Microsoft had an explicit strategy to abuse standards in order to undermine competitors [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
  - cpach 8y ago
    I believe a lot of good things has come from Microsoft. But their business practices and extremely dominant position during the late 90s and early 00s was quite unpleasant IMHO. It’s a totally different story now that Satya Nadella is CEO. I have a lot of respect for him and all the good news that has kept coming after he took the helm. I would go as far as to say that he saved Microsoft from eating itself.
    - eli 8y ago
      Agree on all points.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      I disagree profoundly, but that's because I work with Windows every day and Nadella has helped turn it into a horrible garbage fire of a product with no QA, user-hostile features, and a bunch of crap nobody asked for. Say what you will about Balmer, but Windows was a better product under him.
      - cpach 8y ago
        I hear ya. Windows 10 has it’s fair share of rough edges, that’s for sure. Personally I prefer MacOS X whenever I can choose freely. When it comes to Windows though, the two main thing that makes me prefer Win 10 over Win 7 are these: a) WSL. For those not familiar with it let’s you run Linux binary executables (in ELF format) natively on W10. (And also on Windows Server 2019.) All (or nearly all?) packages from Ubuntu are available. Super neat, IMHO. b) Lots of handy Powershell cmdlets that are not available in W7. Let’s you configure printers, ACLs, etc via Powershell. So for all its warts I wouldn’t want to revert to W7.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        Undoubtedly a lot of the base components of Windows are better now, it's just that they're buried under a lot of crap, like the crappy new control panels that are slower and have fewer options, or the start menu that breaks if you sneeze too close to it and contains ads, or the forced updates that break stuff all the time.
        cpach 8y ago
        Yeah don’t get me started on the Settings app. It’s a total train wreck. It could possibly take Microsoft years to sort it out.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    DHTML: yes, with reservations. ActiveX: no, a security nightmare and intended to tie users to Microsoft. It's still tying some corporate intranet users to IE6 compatibility.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      But ActiveX is not enabled by default except for trusted zones. It is effectively not a problem.
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        >But ActiveX is not enabled by default except for trusted zones. That (historically) was not always the case...
- anthony_doan 8y ago
  > Old IE really did hold back technological progress for a long time. Seriously, IE5 or whatever was pre-installed on every Window OS and killed Netscape. It took years until Netscape release Mozilla. I lived through this era. Microsoft back then was in the mindset that they were the gate keeper of PC through their OS. They did not want web applications that are OS agnostic. I think the currently strategy right now for most company with the advent of web is wall garden + ecosystem. Give the user base enough tools, software and hardware, to depend on that it'll make it hard to leave.
  - e12e 8y ago
    Also, don't forget Microsoft Frontpage...
alexandernst 8y ago
Who are those parties that actually did end up ruining the web?
- sheeshkebab 8y ago
  I think they mean Facebook, google, amazon...
bunderbunder 8y ago
Also ironic, 15 years ago what we were worried about all the content our browsers couldn't handle. Now the problem is all the content our browsers can't not handle.
acdha 8y ago
You're presenting that as an exclusive choice when the correct answer is both. Microsoft absolutely was trying to subvert the web — they correctly perceived Netscape as a huge threat to Windows’ platform dominance — and they made numerous decisions to accomplish that, and then had roughly a decade where they were able to single-handedly stymie progress. Had the iPhone not been a hit, it probably would have worked, too — I supported web standards and Mozilla through that period but it really took executives having Mobile Safari in their pockets to get support for prioritizing compatibility with anything other than IE.

by skc 8y ago

I think what's ironic is everyone claiming Microsoft was going to ruin the web back in the day and ended up supporting the very parties that actually did end up ruining the web.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment. Old IE really did hold back technological progress for a long time. Who knows where we’d be today if not for that.

eli 8y ago
They did a lot of things that weren't approved by a standards committee but many of them were genuinely progressive. You can draw a straight line from IE4's DHTML to today's modern web apps.
- bulletsvshumans 8y ago
  It's worth remembering that Microsoft had an explicit strategy to abuse standards in order to undermine competitors [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- cpach 8y ago
  I believe a lot of good things has come from Microsoft. But their business practices and extremely dominant position during the late 90s and early 00s was quite unpleasant IMHO. It’s a totally different story now that Satya Nadella is CEO. I have a lot of respect for him and all the good news that has kept coming after he took the helm. I would go as far as to say that he saved Microsoft from eating itself.
  - eli 8y ago
    Agree on all points.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I disagree profoundly, but that's because I work with Windows every day and Nadella has helped turn it into a horrible garbage fire of a product with no QA, user-hostile features, and a bunch of crap nobody asked for. Say what you will about Balmer, but Windows was a better product under him.
    - cpach 8y ago
      I hear ya. Windows 10 has it’s fair share of rough edges, that’s for sure. Personally I prefer MacOS X whenever I can choose freely. When it comes to Windows though, the two main thing that makes me prefer Win 10 over Win 7 are these: a) WSL. For those not familiar with it let’s you run Linux binary executables (in ELF format) natively on W10. (And also on Windows Server 2019.) All (or nearly all?) packages from Ubuntu are available. Super neat, IMHO. b) Lots of handy Powershell cmdlets that are not available in W7. Let’s you configure printers, ACLs, etc via Powershell. So for all its warts I wouldn’t want to revert to W7.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        Undoubtedly a lot of the base components of Windows are better now, it's just that they're buried under a lot of crap, like the crappy new control panels that are slower and have fewer options, or the start menu that breaks if you sneeze too close to it and contains ads, or the forced updates that break stuff all the time.
        cpach 8y ago
        Yeah don’t get me started on the Settings app. It’s a total train wreck. It could possibly take Microsoft years to sort it out.
- pjc50 8y ago
  DHTML: yes, with reservations. ActiveX: no, a security nightmare and intended to tie users to Microsoft. It's still tying some corporate intranet users to IE6 compatibility.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    But ActiveX is not enabled by default except for trusted zones. It is effectively not a problem.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      >But ActiveX is not enabled by default except for trusted zones. That (historically) was not always the case...
anthony_doan 8y ago
> Old IE really did hold back technological progress for a long time. Seriously, IE5 or whatever was pre-installed on every Window OS and killed Netscape. It took years until Netscape release Mozilla. I lived through this era. Microsoft back then was in the mindset that they were the gate keeper of PC through their OS. They did not want web applications that are OS agnostic. I think the currently strategy right now for most company with the advent of web is wall garden + ecosystem. Give the user base enough tools, software and hardware, to depend on that it'll make it hard to leave.
- e12e 8y ago
  Also, don't forget Microsoft Frontpage...

alexandernst 8y ago

Who are those parties that actually did end up ruining the web?

sheeshkebab 8y ago
I think they mean Facebook, google, amazon...

bunderbunder 8y ago

Also ironic, 15 years ago what we were worried about all the content our browsers couldn't handle. Now the problem is all the content our browsers can't not handle.

acdha 8y ago

You're presenting that as an exclusive choice when the correct answer is both. Microsoft absolutely was trying to subvert the web — they correctly perceived Netscape as a huge threat to Windows’ platform dominance — and they made numerous decisions to accomplish that, and then had roughly a decade where they were able to single-handedly stymie progress. Had the iPhone not been a hit, it probably would have worked, too — I supported web standards and Mozilla through that period but it really took executives having Mobile Safari in their pockets to get support for prioritizing compatibility with anything other than IE.