> -----Original Message----- > From: Rob [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 10:34 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Re: SOT moving to FireFox > > > I was wondering if M$ is doing this on purpose or just doesn't care. > > I doubt they are doing it on purpose. I think it's just they just have > little reason to fix them, and some people insist that is valid > behavior because they have lots of money.
For what it's worth it seems clear to me that IE was an unfortunate victim of consolidation. Let's remember that IE 6 is what, 5 years old? When it was released it really did have surprisingly good standards support (especially considering that many of the standards that it supported weren't even done yet) - perhaps the best at the time (even Opera, which had better support for some standards at the time failed to support others completely). MS sat on its haunches watching this (admit it) truly good browser grow in usage until it dominated. Then they got lazy. Sure, they addressed security issues but there was nothing more than "keeping the lights on" maintenance money for IE. They got so lazy in fact that even an open source project was able to smoke them (talk about the tortoise and the hair - FireFox took at least 5 years of development to reach 1.0 status). Finally they formalized the ridiculousness: new versions of IE would only be distributed with new versions of Windows. This seemingly solved many issues for them: they spent years in court trying to prove that IE was a core OS component - this only confirmed that. They found themselves with larger OS issues than they imagined so they pulled the best into that arena. Besides, so the logic went, the next version of Windows will be out in late 2004! That's not so long to wait. Of course that's a mistake: the next version of Windows won't reach us until late next year if then - and even then it will lack several of the key technologies driving its development. So MS finds itself with a woefully out of date browser against renewed threats from Apple and open source - both of which bring more to the table than IE. Of course IE has slowed it's own demise somewhat through it's extensibility: browsers like AvantBrowser and others have popped up to add new faces and capabilities to IE. Clever authors have discovered ways to use IEs extensibility to overcome some of the more egregious issues with it. But when it comes down to it we're still looking at a truly ancient codebase (a codebase that I think should be praised for it's longevity rather than crucified for its failings compared to newer tools). MS does seem to have heard the music. Rumors are flying that the IE development team has been reassembled and at that "something" will be released before the next version of Windows. We'll see if they're able to address the problems in time for it to make any difference, but I hope they do. As old and decrepit as it is IE is still a strong platform. It's a broken platform to be sure, but one that still has a definite spark of promise - if only it wasn't abandoned. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Silver Sponsor - New Atlanta http://www.newatlanta.com Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:187315 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
