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I agree. The assumption here is that the corporate IT mindset is the constant factor, and Mozilla, Chrome, or whatever, have to adapt to it. I don't agree with

• Silhouette 15y ago
  > Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. Corporate IT guys get a lot of grief about imposing picky rules and making life difficult, but the bottom line is that they are the guys who are going to take the flak if stuff breaks. Most of these policies are not there because someone at the head office wants to throw their weight around, they are there because a lot of people on the corporate network really could cause serious damage without even knowing how or why if left to do whatever they wanted. If you want to blame someone for this cultural problem, blame the big software and infrastructure providers, who haven't yet collectively invented a robust global IT architecture where risk can reliably be localised to the user at fault. Or step up and do something about it and get very rich, because it's a real problem facing literally billions of staff every day. Alternatively, you could take the view that cloud computing is the way forward, releasing a new browser every three months will make these sorts of problems go away, and everyone who develops in-house tools and operates a conservative IT policy is a moron with no idea how to run a successful business. Good luck with that. :-)
  • Nitramp 15y ago
    > That's easy to say when you're not responsible for a system where an hour of downtime comes with a seven-figure number in brackets on this quarter's review. In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Releasing a browser every three months (or constantly, such as Chrome) does make a lot of problems go away. And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well - just because you're developing in-house tools doesn't mean they have to suck and only work on IE6.00.14.13 patch level 3 with the right fonts and ActiveX version installed. Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, the web is the more robust IT architecture you're asking for.
    • Silhouette 15y ago
      > In particular if you have such a critical system, you should have a plan on how to upgrade, test, and deploy it. Indeed, but wouldn't such a plan start with building on a firm foundation that isn't going to get EOL'd and no longer support security updates after three months? The reality is that building on FF or Chrome now means trusting potentially critical business functionality to an outside group you can't control with a history of pushing breaking changes. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how they only release useful changes and the community testing is sufficient to prevent regressions, please keep in mind that both Firefox and Chrome have each outright broken both cosmetic rendering details and basic functionality recently, in minor/point releases that you wouldn't normally expect to change user-observable behaviour at all, plus of course there are many widely and less widely reported compatibility issues.) > And having reasonably-well written web apps does help as well Don't tell that to anyone who uses Java applets and has spent significant time over the past few months working around the repeated screw-ups made by major browsers as they implemented new internal details. (If anyone is about to pipe up with how Java applets are yesterday's technology and browser vendors don't need to care about them any more, congratulations, you are a walking example of my point.) > Corporate IT can learn a lot from how application development works on the web, Or web application developers could learn a lot from corporate IT, depending on your point of view. Personally, I can't remember the last time I saw a business critical corporate IT system completely fail or a major deployment of old-fashioned desktop software block a whole company, while I see the trendy style of rapid-development cause major errors with alarming frequency. That applies to everything from Reddit falling over every ten minutes to Google Docs' seeming inability to display even basic documents and spreadsheets properly on all major browsers at any given time.
      • Nitramp 15y ago
        If you are using Java applets, then yes, migrate away. That's a technology that's effectively deprecated since at least 5 years. And yes, my point is: move faster. Regarding stability: yeah sure. Amazon never works, Google.com is always down, ebay doesn't render in half of the browsers. On top of that, all the owners of the millions of websites struggle every day to keep up with all the browsers. Clearly, the web is nonviable and should be shut down.
  • ratsbane 15y ago
    Certainly corporate IT guys sometimes take the flak when stuff breaks, but the really good* corporate IT guys manage to turn major breakage into a justification for a bigger budget. "...blame the big software and infrastructure providers, who haven't yet collectively invented a robust global IT architecture where risk can reliably be localised to the user at fault." So many of the problems of building a robust global IT architecture have already been solved in the Internet itself. When Big Enterprise resists using the Internet as it's designed, as a loosely-coupled system, with rules (RFCs, etc.) then it ends up with the sorts of problems in browser testing like the OP is talking about. "Or step up and do something about it and get very rich..." That's the best thing in your comment. I would have upvoted you just for that. If my previous thesis has any value, that a big problem with corporate IT is attitude, how do we fix it? Send everyone to reeducation camps in the gulag? I can't think of how to profit from that, though it might be fun to watch :) *Depending on the interpretation of "good."
    • Silhouette 15y ago
      I get the feeling you're mocking me. :-) But I'll play along... > So many of the problems of building a robust global IT architecture have already been solved in the Internet itself. Ironically, I think the Internet is a fine example of what I mean. Before the Internet, no-one could DDoS a whole business out of existence, because business models weren't vulnerable to that sort of instant mass attack. Before the Internet, you didn't get rapidly evolving viruses that could sneak into your corporate networks because one user clicked the wrong Facebook link during their lunch break and cause you weeks of grief to remove because they could propagate quickly throughout a whole section of your LAN. Before the Internet, one executive doing something dumb didn't result in every confidential report to which that executive had access being uploaded to someone who would extort money from you to keep it quiet. Before the Internet, your database front-ends were in-house, and one error in a front-end didn't leave you vulnerable to having all your customers' credit card details stolen. Does this mean the Internet is a bad thing? Of course not, it's overwhelmingly positive on balance. But it presents many fine examples of what can happen if the damage causable by a single rogue element isn't effectively contained. > If my previous thesis has any value, that a big problem with corporate IT is attitude, how do we fix it? Exactly. You are assuming that the problem here is the attitude of corporate IT groups, and not their choice of tools. I am suggesting that Firefox and Chrome are making themselves into unsuitable tools and the responsible thing for corporate IT to do is to not use them, presumably going back to using a stable IE version and Microsoft's well-developed management tools instead.
• Goladus 15y ago
  > Corporate IT has to get better and faster, or they will get marginalized by cloud hosted solutions that can move faster and deliver superior experiences at better cost. Who says the cloud-hosted solution isn't more expensive? Who says "experience" is the goal? A company cares about making money, and an internal browser-based app is simply a way to make money more efficiently. Often, the "corporate mindset" means cheap. If you don't need to worry about upgrading your browser, you don't need to blow money on developers just to keep up with cutting edge browser design and you can focus on developing technology that actually makes you more money. For example, if you had a system that involved scanning physical documents into an image repository, then having individual workers review and annotate every single document (using a browser-based app) and then manually make corresponding changes to the customer database. You are paid by an SLA-based contract based on the rate and number of images you are able to process in a billing period. Where would you rather invest your money? Keeping the crusty annotation browser-app up to date with the latest shiny new browser changes, or implementing OCR to increase the speed and efficiency you can process documents?