Quiz Microsoft's IE Team Leader 414
About as timely an interview as you can get: Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 last week, and today we're gathering questions for IE team general manager Dean Hachamovitch. As usual, please follow Slashdot interview rules when posting or moderating questions. We'll publish Dean's answers verbatim as soon as he replies.
First question (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First question (Score:4, Funny)
How about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about this... (Score:4, Interesting)
It did work pretty well though, and was in my opinion a superior alternative to the horrors of the really early Mozilla project.
Re:How about this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How about other Microsoft operating systems? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if IE7 works under Wine, we have an interesting paradox: it just might be cheaper to upgrade from Win2k to Linux in order to be able to run all the new MS programs which can't run under Win2k.
Something seems so very wrong here...
CSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:CSS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:CSS (Score:5, Insightful)
What on earth is "100% W3C compatibility"? The W3C is an organisation, not a specification. They have published hundreds of specifications. No software would implement the lot, nobody would even want to.
You are asking a nonsensical question. A better question would be whether they plan on complete support for specific specifications, such as HTML 4.01, HTTP 1.1, CSS 2.1, DOM 2, SVG 1.1, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Better yet.
Is there a roadmap for future versions of IE?
What can we expect from IE7 updates (just bug fixes)?
Will we have to wait another 5+ years for standards update?
Pointless question. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that NO browser fully supports CSS. Am I wrong in this assumption? Even if you're asking them to support the standards to the same level as all other browsers the implementation would still be incomplete.
There's a built-in derogatory slant to your question. I believe that IE supports more than 50% of CSS standards, which would mean they went further than half-way. Your choice of words is subtly antagonistic.
It's not a "Have you quit beating your wife" question, but neither is it a suitable one for a serious discussion.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps that is because Microsoft is a convicted predatory monopolist with a vested interest in anti-interoperability. When the anti-Microsoft conspiracy theories always end up being right on the money, maybe there really is a conspiracy going on.
Re:Pointless question. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a choice. We can either ask questions that are antagonistic, and hope some of our fellow slashdotters will pat us on the back for MS-bashing, or we can ask questions that have a hope of receiving an enlightening response from the representative of Microsoft.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:CSS (Score:5, Insightful)
pro Open Source != anti-Microsoft .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you assume that pro Open Source equates with anti-Microsoft
was Re:CSS
Re:pro Open Source != anti-Microsoft .. (Score:4, Funny)
The Bill Gates of Borg icon for this story?
Re:CSS (Score:5, Informative)
It's difficult to speak for everyone, but I can give my own opinion on your question.
I used to like IE5. Whether I disliked Microsoft or not, it was a superior browser in its day. The problem is, that the standards that Microsoft helped create all those years ago are not actually supported by Microsoft today. To use the example I pointed out in my own question, IE's lack of DOM 2 Events support means that there is absolutely no way to write DHTML code that works in both IE and Firefox. Yet, I can easily write code that works in Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
Is there any reason for this dichotomy? Yes and no. Code can be made to work across the major non-IE browsers, because they all provide at least basic support for the W3C standards. IE has its own attachEvent() model that is (obviously) incompatible at a code level, and subtly incompatible at the behavior level. All that microsoft needs to do is to lay a parallel API that supports the W3C standard, and I would be a happy fellow. Yet they haven't done that, won't do that, and I have NO IDEA WHY.
So I continue to write code that works in Firefox, Safari, and Opera, then special patches to make it work in IE. From where I'm sitting, I just want the problem to go away. If Microsoft fixes their browser, then I'll be happy. If Microsoft can't do that, then I will carry the "Down With IE!" torch until their browser is irrelevant in the market. Then I'll also be happy.
Basically, my web browser opinion is not one based on my feelings about Microsoft. I just want a market were I can target a single standard is all. If Microsoft abuses their Web Browser monopoly to stand in the way of that, then it is my duty as a web developer* to help smash that monopoly.
* What happened to the "Developers, developers, developers" jingle, hmm? Are we important, or aren't we?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:CSS (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have any plans to support CSS 2.1 *when it's finished*?
Re:CSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Browser comeptition is likely to continue in the marketplace, and as such, the feature sets of browsers will vary in order to appeal to a certain user base. Firefox has become something of the de facto standard for developers, to the extent that many web designers follow the practice of "design with FF in mind" while adding scripting and such to correct for what are commonly referred to as IE tweaks. Given this environment, there are 5 germane questions to ask:
1. Does the Microsoft vision for IE7 place it in comeptition with Firefox as the browser of choice for developers?
2. If so, what feature sets will IE7 have that can compete with Firefox and the open source community, and will those features include increased recognition and compliance with W3C standards?
3. Often times I find myself opening IE for simply Microsoft functions that I otherwise cannot do in my browser of choice. Will cross-based browser support ever occur for common Microsoft functions like Windows and Office updates?
4. As IE7 goes public as an update for those in a post-Windows 2000 environment, are there plans to make this upgrade available for businesses that still rely on those features of the Windows 2000 family of clients and servers?
5. Finally, as some businesses rely on certain functionalities embedded in IE6 that are no longer there in IE7, are there plans to allow for dual instances of IE6 and IE7 in the future to allow for software and program compatability for businesses and their 3rd party vendors?
Re:CSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Please add this one to the list if the others do not make it. I still do not understand ignoring W2k support with Firefox breathing down Microsoft's neck.
So I can buy new hardware and new OS in order to get anti-phishing and tab support, or I can download Firefox for free???
Evil Plan? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this purposeful? If not, what is the reason?
Re:Evil Plan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wondering, but what kind of answer are you expecting here? "Dang, yes, you caught us in our secret ploy! Oh well, back to the drawing board!" :)
IE's design goals (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it your goal to render a standards compliant website correctly in all cases, or are you just aiming to implement those parts of the spec that are used by the majority of your customers? Naturally, I can understand prioritizing the things that are hitting your customers above those that are rarely used in the real world, but part of the reason the some of them aren't used in the real world is down to lack of browser support. I find it incredibly frustrating that some of my site layouts have to be butchered just to get them to work in the commonly used browsers. If IE fails to render a compliant page according to the spec, can you commit to actively tracking it as a bug with a view to fixing it in a future release of IE, even if it only affects a handful of people?
Re:IE's design goals (Score:5, Funny)
This needs to be answered (Score:3, Funny)
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:5, Funny)
This is an important question. We don't want people to view the average slashdotter as able to participate in a calm, reasonable discussion. We need to be viewed as zealots, collectively frothing at the mouth.
I'd even like to see this question include just for humour.
Re:MOD PARENT UP! (Score:4, Insightful)
CSS and IE compatibility (Score:2, Interesting)
A question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A question (Score:5, Interesting)
Prediction: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prediction: (Score:5, Informative)
- Robin
Interface (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interface (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Interface (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed, the UI for IE7 is strange. If this is a hint of Vista I expect Mac and Linux will pick up a few desktop users afer the release.
FYI this reg setting will move the menu bar to the top.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser]
"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000001
Standardized Compliance Tests (Score:5, Interesting)
Best/Future Features (Score:5, Interesting)
My Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Presumably, throughout this development process for IE7, your team has had their nose to the grind-wheel, so to speak. What sort of things did you do to chill out and relax? Were there any in-office perks, like pool tables or whatnot? And were you actually all in the same office, or did some members of the team have to telecommute from far-off lands, like Oregon?
IE8? (Score:4, Funny)
IE7 release time (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow up (Score:5, Interesting)
DOM 2 Events (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who's been forced into using runtime patches (example [lachy.id.au]) to increase IE's compatibility with DHTML code, I feel compelled to ask: Why has the IE team ignored this critical standard?
Not just the Events module... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some issues I've personally encountered, several of which I hit on a regular basis:
* Namespaces are completely absent from IE's DOM implementation (createElementNS, getAttributeNS, etc. functions simply do not exist).
* Prototyping of DOM elements is impossible without using proprietary HTC behaviours.
* Tables that are created dynamically will not appear unless elements are
Re:Not just the Events module... (Score:5, Informative)
What I MEANT to write was:
* Tables that are created dynamically will not appear unless elements are added to <tbody> -- in other words, using DOM to write <table><tr><td>content</td><tr><table> does not display anything, even though <tbody> is optional.
* getElementsByTagName('object').item(0).getElement
As far as the navigator.plugins is concerned, it's definitely possible that it's a fragment of the browser wars, but that would be rather weird (except as an intentional attempt to sabotage Netscape Plugins API in order to push ActiveX -- something I find much more plausible than "fixing Netscape-only sites"). An empty nagivator.plugins would be just as easy to detect as one that didn't exist, and if something depended on it being there so that it could find a plugin, the site still wouldn't work in IE.
As an aside, between my last post and now, I ran some JavaScript unit tests from the W3C Compatibility Test Suite.
http://www.w3.org/2003/02/06-dom-support.html [w3.org]
DOM Conformance Test Suites
==========
DOM Core 1
----------
Internet Explorer 7 (37.95% failure)
Tests: 224
Errors: 4
Failures: 85
Opera 9.02 (11.34% failure)
Tests: 238
Errors: 12
Failures: 27
Firefox 1.5.0.7 (5.88% failure)
Tests: 238
Errors: 15
Failures: 14
==========
DOM Core 2
----------
Internet Explorer 7 (45.45% failure)
Tests: 11
Errors: 2
Failures: 5
Opera 9.02 (36.36% failure)
Tests: 11
Errors: 0
Failures: 4
Firefox 1.5.0.7 (18.18% failure)
Tests: 11
Errors: 0
Failures: 2
==========
DOM HTML 2
----------
Internet Explorer 7 (8.47% failure)
Tests: 685
Errors: 16
Failures: 58
Firefox 1.5.0.7 (1.31% failure)
Tests: 685
Errors: 0
Failures: 9
Opera 9.02
I tried about 20 times to get Opera to
complete this test, and it would constantly
fail to load files and Retry did nothing.
Oh, well. I'd guesstimate the failures are
probably around 2-3%.
I'd say there's a pretty serious fucking problem when nearly 38% of DOM Core 1 functionality is BROKEN.
Doing WebSite development. (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple questions (Score:5, Interesting)
IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?
Why ditch platform conventions (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a workaround [enhanceie.com] that involves editing the registry to get the menu bar in the correct place but why is this not implemented as part of toolbar customisation?
Microsoft jisallim aklak (Score:5, Interesting)
anti Open Source pro-Microsoft digital jihadism (Score:3, Funny)
was Re:Microsoft jisallim aklak
Re: (Score:2)
IE7 + Win2k (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like it'd be any less secure than IE6 on Win2k.
How much of SpyGlass is left in IE7? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How much of SpyGlass is left in IE7? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How much of SpyGlass is left in IE7? (Score:4, Informative)
IE as Open Source (Score:2, Interesting)
A software company can either decide to add value to that base of software,
or fight the tide and compete directly with it.
Will Microsoft, at some point decide to open source a few things, like IE, that have been equalled or surpased by open source?
Or will Microsoft instead try to "compete" with such software via other means: legislative, marketing, proprietary lock in?
Now that transparency and CSS is fully implemented (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now that transparency and CSS is fully implemen (Score:3, Interesting)
I do consider the lack of SVG support a critical failing of IE7. SVG is a huge step towards making the web a more beautiful place. The compeating standard is Flash, which doesn't help Microsoft. It would seem that adopting SVG would help Microsoft's design suite.
Thanks. Ted.
My shot (Score:5, Interesting)
IE 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
A question .. (Score:2)
Does this mark a faster release cycle? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the release of IE7 mark the beginning of a more aggressive development/release cycle for Internet Explorer? That is, we are all aware of various aspects of CSS, for example, that are not currently supported in IE (though kudos on all the progress in this direction you've made): can we expect updates to IE, either as service packs, point releases, or new versions, that will provide better standards support in the relatively near future? Or will we be limited to security fixes for the foreseeable future, as with IE6?
IE7 and Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
IE vs. Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)
Moo (Score:5, Funny)
Web Development (Score:2, Interesting)
Security (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty simple really. (Score:2)
Re:Pretty simple really. (Score:4, Funny)
ooh ohh! i have a question! (Score:5, Funny)
How about this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Would you expect IE to become as dominant as it is now if users had to specifically choose it over another?
Ignoring the slight impracticalities, if so (I'm guessing you do), on what basis would this be?
how does microsoft choose which CSS/DOM to add? (Score:5, Interesting)
DOJ Antitrust Settlement (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Questions for IE Development Team (Score:5, Funny)
short and sweet (Score:2)
Browser integration (Score:5, Interesting)
Where do you stand on this issue? How central to the XP and Vista experience will IE7 become?
client-side persistent storage (Score:2, Interesting)
IE 7+ (Score:4, Interesting)
Teaching others about new features in IE7. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is this: how will you spread word of the new changes and features to neighbor Joe or Grandma Smith -- will you rely on word-of-mouth from the technocracy, or do you trust that your features are transparent enough that they will easily understand the difference between, say, types of SSL certificates provided by sites?
Project Management? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Rick
Allowing Developers to Test for Compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
ie7 and runas (Score:3, Interesting)
Some background for people who aren't familiar with runas:
Sometimes I need to browse the network as an administrator while logged in as a non-admin. With IE6, I can type "runas
But after I installed IE7 final on my test machine, this no longer works. Running ie7 as an admin user, whether by right clicking on the exe and picking run as or running it from a cmd line launched as a admin user, no longer let's me browse network shares or local drives as an admin user. This is really frustrating.
Does microsoft have plans for an IE feedback form? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having such a feedback form would mean that people could post things like "Support " or "Fix issue where adds an extra pixel to the border" or whatever and then the IE team could investigate them (just like the Visual Studio team does with the Visual Studio feedback) and provide feedback such as "no, we cant fix this at this time" or "we will consider this for the next release" or "we have investigated this and have a fix already" or "here is a workaround" or whatever else it is. If there was a vote system so people can vote for what they think is important, microsoft could use that information to see how many people want which features (and therefore which features it makes the most sense to implement).
Release schedule? (Score:4, Interesting)
Will you release those versions for all Windows versions that have mainstream support or just the latest Windows?
Zoom in IE7 (Score:3, Interesting)
This one is simple... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why develop IE at all (Score:5, Interesting)
more questions (Score:3, Interesting)
And will there be minor feature enhancements/bug fixes before the next major release? The PNG color space problem comes to mind - fixing this in a minor release shouldn't break anything else.
Standards Compliant Mode (Score:3, Interesting)
Business case for releasing IE7 separate from Vist (Score:3, Interesting)
As it turns out, the release of IE7 separately is an about-face on this matter.
While it might take away one advantage of Vista over sticking with XP, I think the choice of a free upgrade is a good thing for the user.
Can you speak to the pro and con arguments that came out in deciding to release IE7 separate from Vista?
Thanks.
I asked Hakon about CSS and now I ask you: (Score:5, Informative)
This past summer Håkon Wium Lie was interviewed on /. and my question was selected [slashdot.org] concerning IE7's glaring lack of full CSS support. Why is it that MS has avoided meeting at least the ACID2 spec for CSS in order to bring some semblance of comformity for developers?
Håkon Wium Lie's response [slashdot.org] to these questions is boiled down to the fact that you do have the talent and resources to fix these issues and he says that "the fundamental reason, I believe, is that standards don't benefit monopolists" like MS.
How do you respond to his comments (the author of the CSS spec) and does MS have any near future plans to adhere to the existing CSS standard? If not, what would it take for MS to take a more proactive role in supporting it?
View Source Color Coding (Score:3, Interesting)
rfc2782 support? (Score:4, Interesting)
rfc2782 allows for DNS servers to return a list of ips to clients with info on priorities and weights. This would allow browsers to seamlessly switch to a backup server if the primary server went down, which would greatly improve website availability. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, there are no browsers out there that support this.
Is there any possibility that IE will support this?
testing in all browsers (Score:3, Interesting)
i'm a web developer, and need to test web sites for both IE7 and IE6. Buying another PC isn't an option, and running virtualization software is a lot of effort (in many different ways) just to have two browsers installed. With that in mind, how would you recommend I go about testing sites in both browsers? Most solutions I've seen involve hacks which aren't guaranteed not to break certain things.
Because of this issue, many sites are going to (visually) break in IE7 as soon as people update their browser. This isn't going to look good to most users, and could potentially send many of them running for an alternative which doesn't break the sites they like.
If this dual setup is not easily possible now, will it be in the (near) future? And was this something that you considered when developing, and planning the release of, IE7?
Popular standing (Score:4, Interesting)
Today, IE is the browser that has people swearing blue murder because of the amount of effort it takes to make a page that works properly in the other browsers look correct in IE. As someone pretty high up in the dev team, does this bother you/niggle your professional pride? And perhaps more importantly, are there any plans to try to win back the affection of the web dev community?
Personally, I think IE7 is a step in the right direction, but I think Netscape had to get to 7 or 8 before I started thinking it was a decent browser again - old hatreds die hard...