

The 11% for IE11 challenge - lanthe
http://blogs.windows.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2013/10/28/let-s-build-a-faster-web-and-eat-pizza-take-the-11-for-ie11-challenge.aspx

======
jawns
The blog and the 11% for IE11 landing page both imply that if you complete the
challenge, you will win the prizes described.

For instance, the blog entry says: "If you can get 11% better page load
performance from your site, we'll send you and your team some 11 goodness."
I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like a valid unilateral contract to me.

Similarly, the landing page says: "Show us how you got 11% better page load
performance in your organization's home web page and we'll send you all this
goodness."

But in the fine print, it says: "The first 11 organizations that meet the
qualifications above will each receive the following: 11 pizzas (in the form
of a $120 gift card), 11 year-long subscriptions to BrowserStack (ARV $240
each), and 11 copies of Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac (ARV $79 each)."

There's a heck of a big difference between "If you do this, we'll give you
this" and "If you're one of the first 11 people to do this, we'll give you
this."

The fact that there will be only 11 prize winners should be made more clear.
After all, there is PIZZA on the line. And there's nothing like a pizza bait-
and-switch to get developers angry at you.

~~~
justgar
@jawns. We have updated the blog post to clarify. I encourage you to try out
the new tools and I hope the perf testing is worth the pizza+.

~~~
jawns
Thanks. I hope you'll also update the landing page of the challenge.

A little more feedback, which I hope you'll take as constructive:

As I said above, there's quite a difference between "if you do this, you'll
win this" and "if you're one of the first 11 people in the United States to do
this, you'll win this."

As I see it, if I have any chance of winning the prize, I've got to drop
everything right now and scramble to complete the challenge, and even then,
who knows how many other people are doing the same thing?

So, my incentive has just dropped from, "This is exciting! I have a decent
shot at getting pizza!" to "It's extremely unlikely that I'll win. Why
bother?"

I would therefore suggest that you look for ways to increase the value
proposition to developers. I'm not saying you have to spend millions -- but
maybe find some creative ways to reward developers outside of the first 11,
such as by featuring some of the success stories on your blog.

~~~
justgar
You bet. Feedback well taken jawns and thanks! This has been live for 2 hours
so I still think you have an opportunity here.

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Aardwolf
Am I the only person who is sensitive to JPEG artifacts? Look at this image
from the article. Why did they use such low quality JPEG?

[http://blogs.windows.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver...](http://blogs.windows.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-
weblogfiles/00-00-00-59-33-metablogapi/clip_5F00_image002_5F00_2073DC23.jpg)

~~~
harpastum
JPEG from article, 18,873 bytes:

[http://blogs.windows.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver...](http://blogs.windows.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-
weblogfiles/00-00-00-59-33-metablogapi/clip_5F00_image002_5F00_2073DC23.jpg)

PNG grabbed from actual site: 19,764 bytes:

[http://f.cl.ly/items/3w3k2O3n0y0v2W0L1p40/lossless.png](http://f.cl.ly/items/3w3k2O3n0y0v2W0L1p40/lossless.png)

About the same size, _much_ better looking.

------
nwh
Doesn't make up for the fact that I spent most of my time writing workaround
for the stupid rendering bugs their "30% faster" browser introduces. Even just
basic CSS layouts and constantly wrong in IE.

~~~
hacknat
I know, I don't care if they are objectively the best browser (I doubt they
are), my grudge against them runs too deep. I want them to fail. Does that
make me a bad person?

~~~
ConceptJunkie
No. But then again, I feel the same way, so my opinion may be biased.

------
xradionut
Here's a challenge:

It would be nice if Microsoft would fix the issues with IE11. Like all the
sites that work with IE10, that don't work anymore with IE11. Their solution
was to issue an IE11 upgrade blocker with a shitty manual install routine.

~~~
Zelphyr
Internet Explorer has been and continues to be hostile to the web. It easily
makes my job as a web developer at least 50% more difficult which translates
into costing my employer more money.

As far as I'm concerned, we as developers need to make a concerted effort to
force Microsoft to either adopt WebKit or release a version of IE that is 100%
standards compliant.

~~~
AaronFriel
Diversity of implementations on the web is vital for continued innovation.
Though it's _less_ important that IE stick with the Trident engine now that
Blink and WebKit 2 have diverged, we should celebrate progress and encourage
participation in the standards process - things IE has gotten a lot better
about especially in the last two iterations.

> _has been and continues to be hostile to the web_

I'm going to have to dispute "continues to be":
[http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+11,firefox+25,chrome+31](http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+11,firefox+25,chrome+31)

You have to scroll down quite a ways before you find feature differences
between the browsers, and it's not quite clear which (except maybe Chrome) is
the best. If we remove feature drafts, it's a good deal closer.

Now, regarding _has been_ :
[http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+6,ie+7,ie+8,ie+11](http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+6,ie+7,ie+8,ie+11)

Well, there's no contest there. IE8 being the last supported browser on XP is
a harsh reality for web developers. :(

~~~
camus2
> things IE has gotten a lot better

no it has not. IE9/IE10/IE11 dont even render the same page the same way ,
dont even get me started on CSS3 support.

You want things to get better ? let Microsoft drop the version number.and
update its browsers automatically all the way back to IE8...

Oh , but why should they do that , they make money by making their os obsolete
... /sarcasm.

~~~
Zelphyr
> IE9/IE10/IE11 dont even render the same page the same way

One could argue this is because each version is better than the previous.
"Better" being relative here.

> they make money by making their os obsolete

This touches on a possible source of the problem. Their insistence on tying
browser upgrades to major releases of Windows proves they care more about the
revenue from the OS sales than they do about not breaking the web.

I'm encouraged that they have automatic updates now but the jury is out as to
whether they'll make use of it in the way Chrome and Firefox have.

------
chasing
Microsoft now gets to continue to reap what they've sown after spending a
solid decade pissing off web developers...

------
lampe3
"IE11 for Windows 8.1 is our fastest browser yet – 9% faster than IE10 and
nearly 30% faster than the nearest competitive browser."

30% then what competitive browser?

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Firefox 3?

------
volandovengo
Cool idea. Unfortunate that they limit things to the first 11 responses.

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maaaats
Wow, the debugger tools looke very nice. Will need to check them out.

~~~
Meai
Thought so too, but then I remember the lack of "right click->inspect element"
and no good plugin api

~~~
thoraway
Click to inspect is in, they even have an example of using it in the linked
introduction to developer tools. [1]

/works at Microsoft, but not on IE

[1] [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/07/29/debugging-
and-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/07/29/debugging-and-tuning-
web-sites-and-apps-with-f12-developer-tools-in-ie11.aspx)

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Justsignedup
So basically I disable my CDN, show how slow it is, enable it. BOOM faster.
Done.

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tcfunk
"IE11 for Windows 8.1 is our fastest browser yet"...and I still don't care,
because my user base isn't using IE11.

In fact, I'm lucky if they're on IE9.

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ericclemmons
I would test for IE, but there's no native Mac client outside of
virtualization. Until they match Chrome and Firefox, it will be the browser of
graceful degradation for me :(

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codecop
We need to forget IE for all times, and leave it for M$ own usage

~~~
maaaats
We need to be pragmatic and deliver content to whatever device and software
our users use, not hold grumps and use stupid nicknames like "M$".

~~~
rbanffy
Microsoft worked hard earning a bad reputation.

------
calbear81
These must be really cheap pizzas because last time I checked you couldn't get
11 pizzas at Costco for $120.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
If I recall those big ol' pizzas that they make themselves are around $10
each.

------
omgitstom
I wonder how they came to a conclusion that a pizza was 10.9090909 each

~~~
statenjason
probably calculated it with javascript

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FridayWithJohn
"nearly 30% faster than the nearest competitive browser." \- Micro$oft.
Absolute crap as can be seen here:
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413632,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413632,00.asp)

I'm not loyal at all to _any_ browser. I swop and change (used to use IE, then
went to Opera, then Firefox and now to Chrome), but when I hear obvious lies
such as IE is 30% faster than any other browser I all of a sudden want to
permanently leave IE alone

~~~
maaaats
> I'm not loyal at all to any browser.

I don't see why you need to point that out. It's not saving your credibility
after writing "Micro$oft" anyway.

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asdasf
I noticed it was both obvious and trivial to add a web page to your home
screen. Is that also the case on windows phones? Is it the case on any other
phone? Or are webapps treated as second class citizens still on phones?

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galapago
Internet Explorer SUCKS™[1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrMOBKHqqc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrMOBKHqqc8)

