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Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

by chaz 14y ago

ZeroGravitas 14y ago
You're telling me IE's devs were so stupid they couldn't add a spell-checker until IE10? Is that really more believable than internal corporate interests deciding that it threatened Word?
- chaz 14y ago
  Stupidity isn't about the individual developers -- it's about the incompetent decisions that Microsoft made about the browser. They decided that IE would be released only in-sync with new Windows releases. Vista troubles meant IE was effectively on hiatus between 2001 (IE6) and 2006 (IE7). Corporate interests were definitely keeping IE development back, but not as an intentional defensive move to sabotage the Web. Lack of competition in browsers during that period served as a pretty good demotivator, too.
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    "One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities." -- Bill Gates, 1998 a memo to the Office product group[2] Seems like the guy in charge knew when to actively "stop putting effort into" things and intentionally sabotage the open web when necessary. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
    - walid 14y ago
      Ironically the reason I've tried my best to avoid MS Office is because they are not easily accessible by anyone. I once sent my CV as an HTML file along with a PDF. Still to this day, I prefer to send HTML and PDF over sending a Word document they only need an app that everybody uses, a browser.
- brudgers 14y ago
  What is more believable is that spell check in the browser is somewhat of an edge case relative to general browser usage (i.e. web consumption) which Microsoft was historically able to address by allowing plug-ins. They rolled it into the development of their plug-inless browser and rolled their plug-inless browser into their not quite so backward compatible OS release. I suspect that the corporate interests have long known that IE is not a sales critical feature.
- criley 14y ago
  You're telling me that you actually believe that developers at Microsoft pick and choose what features they include in a browser? You can blame software designers at Microsoft for that decision (or lack of decision), but I'm fairly sure that dev's at Microsoft are on the "fulfill the design" side of developing...
  - sc0rb 14y ago
    Maybe there's a data protection law in one American state that has nothing to do with the conversation that you would like to refer too? bubble.....
    - criley 14y ago
      What you're doing is "cyber-stalking", following me across threads and insulting me because a conversation did not end up like you want. Please stop this immature behavior.
milfot 14y ago
Just because they are stupid, does not mean they are not malicious.. in my experience the two are common bedfellows. Though in this case I think maybe there is a third option.. ignorance maybe?
- chaz 14y ago
  Agreed. I usually use the version of Hanlon's Razor that substitutes "incompetence" for "stupidity." Not that they didn't understand what was at stake, but made a series of bad decisions.

Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

by chaz 14y ago

Hanlon's Razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

You're telling me IE's devs were so stupid they couldn't add a spell-checker until IE10? Is that really more believable than internal corporate interests deciding that it threatened Word?

chaz 14y ago
Stupidity isn't about the individual developers -- it's about the incompetent decisions that Microsoft made about the browser. They decided that IE would be released only in-sync with new Windows releases. Vista troubles meant IE was effectively on hiatus between 2001 (IE6) and 2006 (IE7). Corporate interests were definitely keeping IE development back, but not as an intentional defensive move to sabotage the Web. Lack of competition in browsers during that period served as a pretty good demotivator, too.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  "One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities." -- Bill Gates, 1998 a memo to the Office product group[2] Seems like the guy in charge knew when to actively "stop putting effort into" things and intentionally sabotage the open web when necessary. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
  - walid 14y ago
    Ironically the reason I've tried my best to avoid MS Office is because they are not easily accessible by anyone. I once sent my CV as an HTML file along with a PDF. Still to this day, I prefer to send HTML and PDF over sending a Word document they only need an app that everybody uses, a browser.
brudgers 14y ago
What is more believable is that spell check in the browser is somewhat of an edge case relative to general browser usage (i.e. web consumption) which Microsoft was historically able to address by allowing plug-ins. They rolled it into the development of their plug-inless browser and rolled their plug-inless browser into their not quite so backward compatible OS release. I suspect that the corporate interests have long known that IE is not a sales critical feature.
criley 14y ago
You're telling me that you actually believe that developers at Microsoft pick and choose what features they include in a browser? You can blame software designers at Microsoft for that decision (or lack of decision), but I'm fairly sure that dev's at Microsoft are on the "fulfill the design" side of developing...
- sc0rb 14y ago
  Maybe there's a data protection law in one American state that has nothing to do with the conversation that you would like to refer too? bubble.....
  - criley 14y ago
    What you're doing is "cyber-stalking", following me across threads and insulting me because a conversation did not end up like you want. Please stop this immature behavior.

milfot 14y ago

Just because they are stupid, does not mean they are not malicious.. in my experience the two are common bedfellows. Though in this case I think maybe there is a third option.. ignorance maybe?

chaz 14y ago
Agreed. I usually use the version of Hanlon's Razor that substitutes "incompetence" for "stupidity." Not that they didn't understand what was at stake, but made a series of bad decisions.