[Javascript] Debugger

liorean liorean at f2o.org
Thu Nov 20 09:24:13 CST 2003


Hakan M. wrote:
> Gee, did I hit a hotspot there?

Well, I think you are less than objective about it, and I've heard lots 
of these Microsoft bashings. This is actually the first time I take the 
Microsoft stance, though. I usually side with Mozilla.

> You have a "hard time" justifying the lack of PNG-support, eight years 
> after the promise was made to support it? Do you even KNOW what the 
> PNG-format is, and its benefits over existing (GIF) web graphic formats? 
> For someone so furiously defending multinational megacorporations and 
> their lack of interest in the end user developers, you sure seem to have 
> a funny view on the GIF patent issues.

I'm not defending them. I'm just trying to point out that some of your 
arguments are not valid. This one surely was valid, however.

> MSXML is not the browser, my friend. It's a ActiveX-plugin for the 
> browser. The browser doesn't even understand the xhtml-mimetype. Sure, 
> Microsoft have great, huge libraries for anything you want, but that has 
> nothing to do with their browser. I have a really hard time justifying 
> the use of plugins/htc-files to get normal browser behaviour, but maybe 
> that's just me.

MSHTML isn't the browser either. MSXML and MSHTML are both parsing 
engines that unite in using the same rendering engine (Trident) and are 
both part of the browser. Iew supports XML and HTML through them, but 
doesn't support the XHTML media type (which is newer than the browser) 
and doesn't sport XHTML namespace recognition (which is not required, 
either).

> I didn't say they SHOULD put an army of developers on it. I said they 
> HAVE an army of developers. PNG-support, for example, would take one 
> developer a few hours with one of the many free (but stable!) 
> PNG-libraries to implement. They don't need the army of developers to 
> implement one little thing, that would make the browser much more 
> appriciated. If they're not doing this deliberately, it only leaves us 
> with one choice - their developers don't have the skills to do it.

In fact, they wouldn't need using one of those libraries - they have 
prefect PNG support in among other applications DirectX, iem and Office. 
They just need to put some priority to the iew development, which is 
where they fail.

> I think what you're saying is "if it weren't for the browser wars and 
> Netscape, Microsoft wouldn't have cared about the end user developers at 
> all". XHTML became a RECOMMENDATION in 2000, the first draft appeared in 
> 1998, if I recall correctly.

I don't see you complaining about that Mozilla haven't implemented full 
XLink yet, or some other thing that has been a recommendation for some 
time now. Microsoft supports most of XHTML through it's HTML engine, and 
that is enough for most. People (like me) that use XHTML in their 
personal site, can very well look at the HTTP headers to see if a 
browser claims it supports the XHTML media type, and send it as HTML 
otherwise. Mozilla and Opera tells the server they accept the XHTML 
media type, while iew doesn't, so why should your server then try to 
send it using the XHTML media type?

> I can counter by saying "If it weren't for Microsoft, we would not have 
> these browser incompatibilities we have today." It makes just as much 
> sense.


> They are NOW considering that? So IE is currently not a core technology 
> of Windows? Ever guessed why the patches for IE are along the lines of 
> "prevent any newbie hacker from any part of the world to take complete 
> control over your computer and wife" instead of "added correct 
> calculation of margins"? Ever guessed why you can't run older versions 
> of IE on new versions of Windows (you can, but not the way it's 
> "supposed" to be run)

You fail to see what I mean. Up until now, iew has been an external 
application that communicates with and is commucated with by a lot of 
other applications, some of which has been core functionality of the OS 
or the GUI, but WAS separated. In Longhorn, however, the OS is the 
browser. It's moved to the point where you CAN NO LONGER remove the 
browser, because then the OS itself will no longer work.

> IE is not in control over I/O operations on kernel level, sure, but 
> anything that exposes the operating system to such a massive range of 
> attacks by only being installed is taking enough part in the OS, if you 
> ask me. It's funny that you think this is a GOOD thing.

I don't think it's a good thing, and I'm not saying so, either. I was 
pointing out that we have reached the point-of-no-return when it comes 
to integration.

>> I'm tired of Microsoft bashing when the arguments are 
> With an audience like you, who needs better arguments.

You.

You are making assumptions that are not necessarily true (about me and 
my stance in this, for instance) and you are making arguments that are 
not correct (XML support and Microsoft deliberately letting iew fall 
into despair, for instance).

-- 
liorean <mailto:liorean at user.bip.net>

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