^^^^ Pussy.
How’s this? When I use MSIE I feel as though I’m sucking Bill Gates off.
The notion that FireFox “integrates poorly with windows” is a good thing. It keeps the browser separate from the operating system. In fact, the whole browser integration concept was nothing more than a deceptive ploy on the part of MS to “cut off Netscape’s oxygen supply” by bundling their browser with Windows98. When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that they were not allowed to do this, they insisted that Internet Explorer is part of the OS! Has been since the dawn of time!
Microsoft has “driven the browser boat”? By doing what, exactly? Luring lazy developers who want to create enterprise-based web apps? Um … that’s a no-brainer, because every Windows-equipped enterprise machine has MSIE on it already! Why would I, as an in-house developer, ever test my apps on other browsers when I know everybody will already have IE?
>“If people don’t want these features then why do web developers use them?”
Because they’re easier, in the short term, even though they break consistency of syntax and structure. Example: if you were working on coding MIDIBox SID, and TK put a function right in MIOS called something like “play_sid_piano_note(x)” where you stick in a value from 1 to 127 and that uploads a cheesy piano sound to a SID connected directly to that core, then plays the specified note about a quarter of a second later – would you ever use it? Probably not, because it doesn’t work all that well - but at least it’s consistent. You’re a musician, after all, and you need better. There are functions already in MIOS that will make this possible, but it’s going to require a lot more work than that.
Enterprise application designers don’t give a rat’s ass about web standards. They want their job done quickly at the end of the day. The reality is you could use that SID Piano function to make a little tune. It would sound like garbage, but you could push a tune out the door.
If IE3 hadn’t been possibly the most crappy browser ever, you wouldn’t have even heard of Netscape.
Where do you get this from? I used Netscape for over a year (since version 0.7), before MSIE even existed. In fact, MSIE used the NCSA Mosaic engine when it was first introduced. MS bought it. And MSIE was a separate download from Windows 3.1 and Windows95.
In fact, if memory serves, I don’t even think there was an Internet Explorer version 2, because Netscape was already up to version 3 by that point, and Microsoft didn’t want it to sound as though they were “1 behind” to people trying to pick a browser. So they skipped right to version 3.
And unfortunately FF is too far from being a finished product.
OK, do you work for Microsoft? Can you elaborate on this? Too far … for what?
As far as the printing stuff: my workplace is fast-paced. Our enterprise machines have MSIE only on them, and users are locked out from installing any software. I am issued a personal laptop however which I can customize as I please. Frequently over the course of a day I am required to find a product or tidbit of information on the web, print it, and give it to somebody. MSIE almost never works on the first try. For this reason alone, when I know I might have to print a web page, I move to FireFox on my laptop, even if I’m already sitting in front of a corporate desktop. And to suggest that this is due to laziness on the part of web developers is a copout, when “alternative” browsers such as FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc are developed based on standards-compliance. I would contend that the lazy developers here are the ones who make MSIE.
I maintain my position, but elaborate: Internet Explorer is not a modern web browser. Perhaps as you state, IE7 will be better, but right now almost all other browsers run circles around it. Is it from a different vintage? I don’t care. Everything else is better right now. And I don’t understand why you apologize for it. As for tabbed browsing, I’ve been doing it for the past 3 years or so, long before MSIE was nearing EOL.
This might seem like an off-topic rant, but it’s not completely:
This is a community of open-source developers, information sharers, hobbyists, and tinkerers. We are the people who stand to lose the most when companies arbitrarily put their proprietary meat-hooks all over everything and mess it up for the rest of us. Look at the Mackie Control C4, a simple yet beautiful goddamn box of knobs and displays, yet Mackie made its protocol proprietary to prevent people like us from ever making anything that can work as well - it is big business (Mackie) dealing with big business (Apple/Steinberg/Digidesign/etc), and they genuinely do NOT have our best interests in mind. There is no reason in the world why that protocol ought to be closed, other than to protect their bottom line.
What would happen if a synth manufacturer were to make their own proprietary messages over MIDI? You know, so that when it’s talking about notes and mod wheel, other synths think it’s talking about program changes and active sensing. Then they made their synth really inexpensive, but really capable? Ignorant newbies would buy it as their “first synth”, and then software developers would have to make their stuff able to talk to it. Guess what? That synth manufacturer just hijacked MIDI! Suddenly our MIDIboxes cause havoc when they’re connected on the same chain as a 72-MIDI-channel polyphonic humidity sensing Rolahorg DX2000!
Is my point of view extreme? Probably… but I’m glad to not run MSIE, and frankly I care more about what I just flushed down the toilet than I do about making pages work well in it. I’d much rather boycott that company and all the evil things they do.
I say that people should not jump on the “bash MS” bandwagon until they’re fully educated.
I leave this comment until the end. Stryd, I’m going to be honest with you: I appreciate all of the contributions you make around here, but this comment offends me. I bash MS and I’m fully educated. And I’m not alone. In fact I would contend the opposite … that people should not jump on the “defend MS” bandwagon until they’ve had a chance to fully think through the ramifications of MS’s actions.
