

Microsoft has EARNED my distrust - mhusby
http://locker73.com/2012/05/09/ie-pay-your-dues/

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randomdrake
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>

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nikcub
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.

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

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
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.

~~~
andrewmu
Sure. And in a repeated game theory environment, tit-for-tat, that is
punishment for a default, is successful general strategy. No emotion required.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
And a more successful strategy is tough but fair where when the other party
resumes good behaviour (which MS have) you resume good behaviour.

~~~
andrewmu
Well, there's a queue of tats to work through first.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
That's not how game theory works.

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bunderbunder
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.

------
smackfu
So business decisions based on grudges is good now?

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victork2
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.

~~~
rralian
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.

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schlomie
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.

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K2h
Article doesn't give one solid example.

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cleverjake
Isn't that what Rey was doing?

