
First look at Project Spartan, Microsoft's take on the modern browser - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/first-look-at-project-spartan-microsofts-take-on-the-modern-browser/
======
sytelus
Annotations are a actually great idea if they are all in cloud by default and
attached with my social IDs. Then I can follow friends, family and people and
view their annotations on web pages as I surf the web. For example, I'm
visiting a restaurant website and my friend already annotated with menu
recommendation or better direction. The feature can turn every web page in to
a wiki. That would be a killer feature that can get viral.

~~~
MichaelGG
MS actually did this already like 15 years ago. It may have been an Intranet-
oriented thing. The end result was that users could add notes to pages. I
think it died off with the rest of the Office-web thingies.

Edit: It was Office 2000 that enabled this, called "Web Discussions". You had
a "Discussion" button in IE[1]. Here's a paper talking about how useful it
was: [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/redmond/groups/coet/a...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/redmond/groups/coet/annotations/cscw2000/paper.pdf)

1: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc751423.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc751423.aspx)

~~~
frik
> Intranet-oriented thing

It used the discussion feature of Microsoft Office Server aka SharePoint
Portal Server. The history of SharePoint is very complex but interesting:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20120419073951/http://blogs.msdn...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120419073951/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/joelo/archive/2007/12/28/7-years-
of-sharepoint-a-history-lesson.aspx) ,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080303180618/http://blogs.msdn...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080303180618/http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/12/27/sharepoint-
yes-we-ve-certainly-come-a-long-way-and-happy-new-year-to-you.aspx) ,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120409232321/http://www.joinin...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120409232321/http://www.joiningdots.net/downloads/SharePoint_History.jpg),
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SharePoint](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SharePoint)
,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120519235139/http://www.seocon...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120519235139/http://www.seoconsultants.com/frontpage/history/)
,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_FrontPage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_FrontPage)

I remember an SP2003 installation with thousands of sub portal sites, hundreds
of GB (blobs) stored in SQL server. What I really don't understand is the
almost non-existing upgrade paths (between versions '01, '03, '07, '10, '13)
and the URL-hell (IIS URL alias would solve that).

Instead of _Cairo-OS_ , _WinFS_ , an improved Explorer shell & improved file
server, nowadays SharePoint fulfill various enterprise needs.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_(operating_system)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_\(operating_system\))
, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS)

------
kenshaw
Microsoft's biggest issue here is that there is no such thing as a "modern"
browser that runs only on one unreleased platform (Windows), that is closed
source, and that cannot also run on mobile devices with significant market
share (iOS, Android). Regardless of how polished, fast, and great Microsoft
makes this, without the above it will never be a "modern" browser, nor gain
any significant market share, simply because developers won't support it.

One of the primary reasons why Microsoft needs to immediately halt, backpedal
and release a version that can run on Linux/OSX (beyond the obvious need to
port to Android/iOS) is that so many high quality sites are tested using
automated testing suites (through Selenium, or otherwise), and those testing
instances typically run through bash shells / scripts. While I'm sure you
could jury-rig Windows 10 to do that (I've used bash on Windows previously,
via Git Bash), you would need to rewrite extensive build and testing tool
chains to use non-Unix-y commands --- and even then, you'll likely find many
of the open source libraries you rely on are broken, unmaintained, or
otherwise unusable on Windows.

As an anecdote, and fairly recently, I actually tried getting unit tests for a
pre-existing, fairly sizable project with 10s of developers and many hundreds
of thousands of lines of code to run on Windows, and realized it was cheaper
to just hand all the developers Mac Books than to either train them on
installing Unix tool chains on Windows, or on "properly" using Linux --
especially considering they were not responsible to write the unit tests, just
run them. It's also much easier to cross-build for Windows from a Unix system,
thus it was possible to completely eliminate Windows in the release process
almost completely, other than for later manual testing/verification that can't
be automated anyways.

~~~
jameshart
It's been clear for a while that 'modern browser' is basically defined as
'browser not made by Microsoft'. That you're willing to define 'modern
browser' as basically "must run on iOS and be scriptable from bash" as a way
to exclude their latest effort just implies Microsoft is doomed to forever
fail your 'true scotsman' test. If they provided a Linux and android port,
you'd find something else to exclude them on - modern browsers render their
type using TypeKit, after all.

~~~
kenshaw
Actually, no. If they provide cross-platform support, open source it, and make
it easily pluggable into existing scripting toolchains (ie, Selenium WebDriver
or some such), then I'll call it a modern and open browser. Open source isn't
actually necessary, so long as its easily installable using native package
managers so that SysAdmins don't have to run/write custom installation scripts
for CI support.

I honestly couldn't care much if they supported Android or iOS. I'm simply
pointing out that the competition -- Chrome, Firefox, Opera -- all have these
features, and are what people consider "modern." You can't go backwards on
featureset and still be considered modern.

~~~
jameshart
I'm curious - did Apple make available easy toolchains for integrating Safari
on iOS into selenium webdriver tests? Or did the Selenium community do that?

Of course, your argument would be that of course Safari on iOS has a large
mobile market share, so it qualifies as 'modern', in spite of the fact that it
doesn't run on a UNIX system that can be easily scripted.

But are you going to really argue that Windows doesn't represent a significant
marketshare of users?

If you're willing to buy all your windows developers macbooks to help them run
unit tests, what's to stop you ordering all your UNIX developers a windows
laptop to host windows-only browsers running tests driven through a remote
webdriver just like the ones that you run on iOS devices?

------
jakejake
It'll be interesting to see if MS can stand strong on no backwards-
compatibility. It seems like every time they release something new, by the
time it's out of beta it's got tons of compatibility baggage added.

~~~
Someone1234
I know what you mean. But in this specific case they are continuing to offer
the "legacy" IE engine for those jobs, so they may be able to keep this one
unencumbered just by pointing people to that.

------
leeoniya
as a web dev, the main thing i'm looking forward to is its "evergreen-ness"
for all the web's consumers not on Chrome or FF.

now only Safari left to make a similar commitment and shorten the release
cycles...

~~~
Encosia
For what it's worth, recent versions of IE are already evergreen and auto-
update by default.

The real culprit behind us _still_ having to support IE8 for some clients is
your average enterprise IT department. They'll find ways to lock down updates
on any browser. Just as some IT departments have auto updates locked down on
Chrome/Firefox already, they'll probably demand a way to do that with
Microsoft's browsers too (or find a way to block the updates without
Microsoft's support).

~~~
Spearchucker
I ask every enterprise I walk into what the patch management strategy is.
There's always herds of testing, that often takes months. Recommendation?
Patch first, deal with compatibility later. In most cases (note, not all)
being hacked is more expensive than a temporary, self-imposed denial of
service.

Edit: Thing I forgot to add is that an aggressive patch management strategy
just so happens to do great things for technical debt.

~~~
Encosia
The thing that makes my life difficult is that even if you (and I) choose not
to work directly with/for those laggard companies, their locked down userbase
is still on the web and impacts the requirements of sites I build for
completely unrelated clients.

------
dejv_cz1
I just hope that times when freezing of IE meant that whole OS got frozen too
are over. Anyway the design is very clear. They had to redisign it this way
because whole Modern UI (metro) is based on minimalism, simple shapes and
typography and MS will for sure try to include this browser in Win 10 mobile
version. But I'm afraid of plugins which can totally ruin the fresh look and
also other things like bookmarks... Anyway if in MS they want to get back on
the top then they have to do their best and I guess they know that and
attractive design can't solve everything. Mozilla and Chrome are really tough
competitors.

------
slayed0
They sure chose a distracting snapshot of their website to showcase the
minimalist UI of this new browser. all I notice at first glance is the
alarming "Top Post" and all of the images. I guess this is a good thing?

------
Zikes
Is there any word on intent to support extensions, or implement tab
sandboxing?

~~~
frik
IE has already sandboxing since IE8 (on Vista onwards). Spartan is forked of
the (former) IE12's "Edge" trident code. It's basically a new WinRuntime based
GUI app that uses the refactored trident engine (with old legacy compatibility
code removed).

------
MichaelGG
I just got updated to the new Win10 build and tried Spartan. I like the UI;
it's not as ugly as before.

But the font rendering being all blurry is still a showstopper. As is the
apparent lack of addons, for blocking (and vim nav).

It's also _very_ unfinished. Alt-D doesn't go to the address bar, which is a
pretty big thing to forget... I'm guessing internal users aren't using it.

~~~
jpeg_hero
I always thought Ctrl-L was address bar!!

~~~
MichaelGG
Well that one doesn't work in the Sparta preview either.

~~~
Encosia
I'm reading this in Sparta. Pressing Ctrl + L just now did focus the address
bar.

~~~
bpicolo
Yeah but on what browser?

~~~
Encosia
What do you mean? Sparta.

------
joosters
Does it let you disable 3rd party cookies, or are Microsoft throwing us to the
advertising / tracking companies?

~~~
MichaelGG
Yes, disabling 3rd party cookies is one of the few options in the settings
flyout. (There's under 20 settings, total.) The cookies setting is as
prominent as Do Not Track and Block pop-ups.

Also, don't think that somehow just disabling third party cookies is going to
make you untrackable or prevent you from being thrown to advertisers.

~~~
joosters
Good to see the option is there. I know it's nothing like a perfect safety net
against tracking, but when the option is missing, it's a great sign that the
company doesn't care _at all_ about user privacy.

Also, 3rd party cookie disabling is very difficult to do elsewhere - you can
set up a proxy server to filter requests & responses but it has no easy way to
determine 1st/3rd party requests.

------
paraphrase
Spartan needs to be on iOS, OS X, and Android to make it big. It has to go
cross platform

------
nailer
My money's on the annotation thing being moved into an extension.

------
nikanj
IE11 is going to be the new IE6.

~~~
babby
It already is for me. I had to spend ~2-3 days recently debugging IE11's
utterly abysmal dom performance and stylesheet performance. Smooth as butter
on chrome, 4 FPS on IE. The only way to fix it was to display: none everything
I could, and we're only talking about a few hundred dom elements.

------
wantab
On another board, people are all excited about this but I said they need to
take a wait and see and "I'm from Missouri, show me" attitude. Microsoft has
not shown they can produce a standards compliant browser on par with the
others and, so far, the article points out it isn't even level with IE11. And
it is this same hype for every version of IE for the past 10 years that we've
all been told the same thing, "This one will be the best!".

~~~
MLR
It's way beyond IE11, what the article was referring to is the score of the
IE11 version running with all the optional flags of the Edge rendering engine,
which you can't configure in Spartan yet.

Honestly I think it'll have surpassed Firefox before the beta of Windows 10
finishes.

~~~
wantab
Nowhere in the article does it say that. It DOES say Spartan couldn't match
IE11's score.

