Microsoft has EARNED my distrust

http://locker73.com/2012/05/09/ie-pay-your-dues/

by mhusby • 14 years ago

7 18 14 years ago

locker73.com

gouranga• 14 years ago

I'm getting rather fed up with this witch-hunt so I'm going to defend the witches...

Yes IE6, 7 and 8 were absolute bastards, but they've done good with IE9 and IE10 is looking even better.

They know what they've done wrong and are making amends.

5 years ago was the time for the witch hunt, not now.

nopassrecover• 14 years ago

The article acknowledges IE9 is fine, but questions whether it is too little too late.

Tyrannosaurs3• 14 years ago

It doesn't really. It's far closer to saying IE9 may be fine but they need to pay penance for past crimes.

Surely the approach is do bad things, we punish you, do good things, we reward you? IE9 and IE10 are, broadly speaking, good things. To continue to punish MS for them looks a little emotional at best, petulant at worst.

But surely the real decision should be what is right for the individual business? Different companies have different user profiles using different browsers.

This whole decision should be an unemotional one based on resources, customers, revenue and profit.

smackfu• 14 years ago

So business decisions based on grudges is good now?

nikcub• 14 years ago

oh please, "the distrust of the entire development community"

You don't speak on our behalf, and you are sending a "message" to Microsoft about 5 years too late.

If you have a real argument then put it together and communicate it properly, otherwise this is just a continuation of shallow tribalism that really shouldn't have a place here.

K2h• 14 years ago

Article doesn't give one solid example.

victork2• 14 years ago

Oh... your distrust uh? Do you seriously hold grudges against companies when they release a good product after some bad releases? And it's not like you need to do anything if IE 9 is not good enough, just don't be an ass and block them.

I know some think it looks "cool" to appear tough and act like an internet super hero, but really it's counterproductive and this witch hunt is getting ridiculous.

Gosh, sometimes I wish the HN and tech crowd was a little more mature technology. Grow up a little bit and stop the knee jerk reactions to everything you see.

rralian2• 14 years ago

Trust isn't necessarily about grudges or emotions. Microsoft has had a long history of being very web-developer un-friendly; providing terrible tools for debugging, making it very difficult to test different browser versions, not implementing features that developers asked for because users (who wouldn't know about them) weren't asking for them, turning old browser versions into mandatorily legacy software (abandoned on old operating systems... like windows 2000, XP, etc.), not doing more to encourage people to upgrade, and just building a bad browser.

Mozilla, google, apple, and opera, have shown that it doesn't need to be this way. They have put in the effort to earn the trust of developers. Microsoft has not. Microsoft has shown a pattern of not listening to or caring about the web developer community. They seem to have not viewed their browser as a product in itself, but rather a tool to help sell their operating systems. All other concerns are secondary. That means web developers (or let's be honest, even users) have not been top of mind in the strategy that has traditionally been applied to Internet Explorer... corporate strategy has. That's fine, it's their prerogative to do so. They've had the market position to use IE as that kind of tool. Other companies playing the underdog have instead had to build their browsers and manage their strategy to provide the best possible product in order to win market share. I TRUST that they understand it is in their interest to do so.

Is Microsoft starting to play catch-up? Yes, and that's great... I hope they continue to do so. But they have not EARNED my trust that they have my interests as a web developer (or even a user) as their top priority. IE9 is a good effort, but it just hasn't been out for very long. I need to see a longer history of improvement and earnestly creating the best product and listening to developers. I believe their best interests are now served by building the best possible product... I just need to see more track record before I TRUST that they understand this.

cleverjake• 14 years ago

Isn't that what Rey was doing?

bunderbunder• 14 years ago

The market environment is characterized by myriad unnecessary and often equivalent products, all trying to struggle their way to success by way of generating popularity through people telling their friends about positive user experiences.

In an environment like that, wantonly deciding to rudely alienate 20% of your potential customer base simply because you've got a chip on your shoulder about the company that makes their web browser is a recipe for failure.

randomdrake• 14 years ago

Alright, enough is enough.

I've had my own blood, sweat and tears thrown in to making things work for IE throughout the years. Developers need to grow a pair and understand that the only people who really give a rat's behind about whether you support IE are the folks who use IE. Your "stance" doesn't affect Chrome, Firefox or Safari users in any way. You're not cool for acquiescing to mediocrity, you're mediocre.

If you cannot, as a developer, figure out an intelligent way to let your users know of missing features, or figure out a good way to ensure your site works from browser to browser, that's your problem. It's not IE's problem. Quote all you want about how much it "costs" to test for a browser. Frankly, I think it's like anything else that requires practice and knowledge in the programming field. That is to say: the more you work with IE and the various eccentricities that come along with it, the better you get at identifying and skipping over them entirely.

Yes, Internet Explorer can be difficult. Yes, Internet Explorer is getting much better than it was. Whining about it hasn't worked the past five years and nothing magical is going to make Microsoft suddenly have an "aha!" moment that will make things better. If you are unable to recognize the improvements that are being made then you haven't been in the game long enough or you're just too cool for school to acknowledge them.

This whole high and mighty "if it doesn't work for me it's not good enough" thing is such a sign of the superiority complex some developers have for their product and themselves; it's sickening. No two browsers have ever been 100% equal to each other and I don't think that will happen any time soon.

Developing and programming things to work across different platforms has always and will always be a challenge. This is not unique to programming. Manufacturing, medicine and many other fields absolutely require ensuring their products work across a variety of platforms (or humans, or animals, and so on).

Please don't mistake me for thinking IE cannot be a pain in the butt to develop for. I know full well it can be a harrowing and heartbreaking process sometimes. Developing isn't easy. That's why we are who we are and why we do what we do; it's a challenge that we take head on because we're good enough to reach the summit. There's nothing awesome or cool about not being talented enough or not having the resources (which I find entirely arguable) to develop for a platform so much of the market uses.

</rant>

schlomie• 14 years ago

IE9 and IE10 still have terrible things in them: try creating an audio tag with preload=none. They will happily display an _invisible_ audio player on the screen.

Every other browser understands this to mean, place a (visible!) audio widget on the screen, but don't preload anything.

Microsoft has EARNED my distrust

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