4 ms·

You have no sympathy for the fact that they've done the right thing in rebuilding the browser from the ground up to prevent future problems which has been what'

You have no sympathy for the fact that they've done the right thing in rebuilding the browser from the ground up to prevent future problems which has been what's slowing them up? From an engineering perspective this is absolutely the right thing to have done, something technologists would have encouraged them to do at the time in the long term interest of the product. It has short term draw backs (some constraints on functionality in the current version) but was the best decision for the product and, given that IE as the default browser on Windows will always have a significant market share for the web in general, for the web in general. Sure, say that it's not as good as Firefox and Chrome right now but "blamed and shamed"? It feels to me as if you're coming pretty close to beating up on someone for doing the right thing.

andybak 14y ago
They are behind the other vendors as a result of decisions they made in the past. They make my job more difficult daily and make the web worse for millions of people. The decision not to provide an upgrade path beyond IE8 on XP has been a particular road-block in getting people onto better rendering engines. Of course I'm glad they are improving but ideally I'd rather they got out of the browser game entirely.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  If you like standards and you like an open web, you want more players, particularly those willing to throw resources into it, in the game. While it will always be messy around the edges, five companies with 20% market share each would be the best thing for a genuinely open web.
- josteink 14y ago
  Your job is being made more difficult by using non-final HTML draft-specifications in production web-sites and relying on them to work in all browsers before the spec is finalized. That is your choice. You made that problem yourself.
  - andybak 14y ago
    That's just silly. Since the changes wrought by WHATWG to the standardisation process it's become obvious we can start using a lot of this stuff in parallel with the progress to a final published spec. Are you seriously saying that nothing in the specs is meant to be implemented until 2013 or whenever the final date is?
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      I wouldn't go that far but if you use stuff that's in draft you need to accept that adoption of that standard may be patchy and / or inconsistent.
udp 14y ago
If they really wanted to do the right thing, they'd have just given up and used WebKit.
disbelief 14y ago
Instead of starting over and building another browser rendering engine from scratch, they could have switched to Webkit, putting their development cycles to better use contributing to a mature, stable, Open Source browser. Thereby improving the web for everyone, and making their browser the better for it. Why is it commendable that they had such an opportunity and instead decided to re-invent the wheel (again)?

andybak 14y ago

They are behind the other vendors as a result of decisions they made in the past. They make my job more difficult daily and make the web worse for millions of people. The decision not to provide an upgrade path beyond IE8 on XP has been a particular road-block in getting people onto better rendering engines. Of course I'm glad they are improving but ideally I'd rather they got out of the browser game entirely.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
If you like standards and you like an open web, you want more players, particularly those willing to throw resources into it, in the game. While it will always be messy around the edges, five companies with 20% market share each would be the best thing for a genuinely open web.
josteink 14y ago
Your job is being made more difficult by using non-final HTML draft-specifications in production web-sites and relying on them to work in all browsers before the spec is finalized. That is your choice. You made that problem yourself.
- andybak 14y ago
  That's just silly. Since the changes wrought by WHATWG to the standardisation process it's become obvious we can start using a lot of this stuff in parallel with the progress to a final published spec. Are you seriously saying that nothing in the specs is meant to be implemented until 2013 or whenever the final date is?
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    I wouldn't go that far but if you use stuff that's in draft you need to accept that adoption of that standard may be patchy and / or inconsistent.

udp 14y ago

If they really wanted to do the right thing, they'd have just given up and used WebKit.

disbelief 14y ago

Instead of starting over and building another browser rendering engine from scratch, they could have switched to Webkit, putting their development cycles to better use contributing to a mature, stable, Open Source browser. Thereby improving the web for everyone, and making their browser the better for it. Why is it commendable that they had such an opportunity and instead decided to re-invent the wheel (again)?