Slashdot Mirror
Quiz Microsoft's IE Team Leader
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.
Do you prefer Internet Explorer or Firefox?
liqbase
Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems?
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Why did you go half way implementing CSS instead of fully supporting standards all other browsers have for some time now.
As someone who has developed for multiple browsers, it really seems like there is a secret ploy at Microsoft to keep IE relatively incompatible with other browsers.
Is this purposeful? If not, what is the reason?
More
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?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Why are you so gay? And why do you allow IE to destroy the fucking internet?
Would you like to see a universal architecture so that all rendering engines* worked in all web browsers, and all plugins** worked with all rendering engines? *Gecko, mshtml etc **Free and non-free - flash, mplayer and the like
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
90% of the questions posted by slashdot will fall into one of two categories (or maybe both): 1) Why is Microsoft the Evil Empire and what are you doing to stop this (like using Firefox) and 2) What the fuck is up with your CSS support, dude?
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
The new version of IE makes it much harder to work with certain critical aspects of the browser. While I like some aspects of the new browser, some of the interface changes make it much more difficult to work with, and this will keep me firmly in the Firefox camp for now. For example, bookmarks now require many more clicks to access, especially if you use links nested in folders. Also, most interface elements can not be moved around as was previously possible (and is currently possible in Firefox.) The menu bar itself is hidden, and when exposed, appears in the middle of the browser controls! Why go to so much trouble to make essential elements of the program difficult for users to access?
How important is it to Microsoft to ensure that IE passes acknowledged tests of compliane (i.e. Acid2) at the cost of sacrificing newer and possibly more exciting/efficient proprietary technologies?
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
What are the best features of IE7 that sets it above the competition, what features are perhaps lacking and are you currently working on adding these?
Well, I can't think of a real Slashdot-headed question to ask, so I'll go for the entertaining rather than socially relevant:
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?
If you adopt FireFox 2.0 as IE8, your boss would be impressed with how much you improved the product in a very short time. My question is: would you take the extra time to remove CSS features from IE8? Thank you and God Bless.
Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?
One of the stated purposes of IE7 was to better support the W3C standards, and (presumably) to increase compatibility among W3C-compliant browsers. Yet despite multiple requests for DOM 2 Events support, the IE team decided to overlook this support. Currently, IE is the only major browser lacking DOM Events support. Which is a major issue, as IE's attachEvent() design means that special code must be written for IE compatibility.
As someone who's been forced into using runtime patches (example) to increase IE's compatibility with DHTML code, I feel compelled to ask: Why has the IE team ignored this critical standard?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Doing some WebSite development I found that with IE 6 (I havent been able to test IE 7 Yet) I always had to wander away from the standards and the only reason I have gotten is that MS just doesn't like them. Is IE 7 going to make sure that they follow the stands much more closely so when I make HTML and I test it in IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera they all look the same, I normally get the Last 3 to work without much fighting but IE always decided to do it differently. Giving us New Windows Only features is not useful for the developers, but following the standards is. As well our custerms weither they know it or not like it better when we follow the standards (Less junk and warning messages, Or misaligned stuff).
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
There is a workaround 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?
"Why did you go half way implementing CSS instead of fully supporting standards all other browsers have for some time now."
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.
What do you make of all this pro-Firefox, anti-IE digital jihadism?
Why haven't you guys hacked IE7 to run on Win2k minus the WinXP SP2-dependant security features?
It's not like it'd be any less secure than IE6 on Win2k.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
As I recall, Microsoft licensed SpyGlass browser code as the basis for Internet Explorer. Is there any of it left, or have you finally rewritten all the IE code?
"Why are you so gay? And why do you allow IE to destroy the fucking internet?"
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.
...when will you come to SVG?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
A simple question: What are you planning to implement for the next IE version, be it IE 8 or IE 7.5 or whatever?
I realize, of course, that any answer you give to this question may not be valid a couple years down the road, but as of now:
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?
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Did any new Windows Vista technologies influence the development of IE7?
Besides matching some of the features in Firefox (ie. tabbed browsing), what are some others to look forward to in IE7 that an avid Firefox user such as myself would find useful?
Is "Hachamovitch" your real name, or a nickname for how IE is put together?
Have you read my journal today?
If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
One of IE7's revolutionary features was supposed to be security, although it took less than 24 hours for Secunia to post an advisory about a security hole. Moreover, the bug seemed to be carried over from as early as IE5.5. What approach did you take to improve browser's security, and how come the vulnerabilities have been carried over?
There are two kinds of people - those who are radioactive and those who have already decayed..
Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?
"A better question: Are you aware that no matter what answers you give here, they will never satisfy the anti-Microsoft Slashdot crowd?"
Why do you assume that pro Open Source equates with anti-Microsoft
was Re:CSS
davecb5620@gmail.com
Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login (e.g. a message asking 'How would you like to browse the internet? MSIE, Firefox, Opera').
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?
throw new NoSignatureException();
How does microsoft choose which bits of the CSS and DOM standard to implement?
While upgrading to IE7, I noticed that IE6 had to be removed before Windows could install IE7. Does this mean that Internet Explorer is not so tightly bundled into Microsoft/OS that it can not be removed in the name of competition? Also, is the complete IE7 API available for license and fee-free?
Would you like to install SearchBar Helper? Select Yes to Close this Window.
We've been told in the past that the reason that IE was so deeply embedded (to the point that it could not be removed, as we were told) in to the operating system was to improve the online experience of a Windows PC. With Web 2.0 firmly in place, the desire for a web browser integrated in to the operating system is, some would say, greater than ever.
Where do you stand on this issue? How central to the XP and Vista experience will IE7 become?
First, thank you for the efforts the team has already put in. I'm pretty sure that the two features that will provide the biggest benefit to developers, and by extension the users, namely better CSS (hopefully some CSS3) support and moving to the W3 standard event model, will be addressed in the next version of IE. My two part question: Do you have any ETA on the next version, and is there any possibility of adding pieces to IE7 via Windows Update? I recognize changing the event model is not really an option here, but adding support for say border-radius or opacity css support seems like it would be a fairly innocuous change.
You have implemented a new GUI and new security features; these have been examined, praised, and lambasted on just about every tech site out there, so those of us "in the know" are aware of all of the changes and their implications. You also have resources like the quick reference sheet available to help new users of IE7. These are all well and good, but they'll be of no use to anyone who does not know about them or how to use them.
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?
http://www.tenjou.net/
What type of project management processes and structures did you impliment in order to keep the vast number of people and resources invovled with this project in line? How do you feel about those processes now that it's done, and what would you have done differently?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
IE7, like IE6, renders a lot of pages significantly differently than the other main HTML rendering engines available (Geko, KHTML, and Opera). At the same time, IE7 requires WGA to run - so that applications like Wine are unable to run it. This means that web developers who are using Linux and Mac OS X will have an extremely difficult time testing their sites with IE7. Was this intentional? If so what was the reason behind it (do you want to force developers to move to Windows for web development, or simply set IE aside as something different that isn't a regular browser and must be specifically developed for), and if not how do you plan to rectify the situation?
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Does microsoft have plans for an IE feedback form similar to what they have now for Visual Studio?
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).
Are you planning to do more regular updates (IE8/9/10/...)? maybe 1 year for between releases?
Will you release those versions for all Windows versions that have mainstream support or just the latest Windows?
Given the highly negative feedback provided for the User Interface of the IE7 BETA releases why did you decide to stick with the same format for the final release?
Given that you are not planning on selling IE 7 and the fact that there are already other browsers on the market which can allow Windows users to experience the web fully why is Microsoft investing so much time and effort in continuing the development of IE ?
Originally, Microsoft claimed that IE7 would only be available with Vista, and would not be made available for older versions of Windows.
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.
This past summer Håkon Wium Lie was interviewed on /. and my question was selected 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 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?
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Why is your "view source" feature so much worse than Firefox's?
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?
While I agree that missing the Events module is definitely the BIGGEST problem, it's certainly not the ONLY problem, which is mostly what I was trying to get out. Also, I'm a fucktard and didn't preview my comment before posting (it's the only time I've ever not previewed a comment on Slashdot, I swear ;)) and Slashcode wiped out a bunch of what I was saying.
s ByTagName('param') returns EVERY <param> IN THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT, not just ones under the requested object. Yikes!
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
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.
[insert witty comment here]
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...
Ignore this signature. By order.
I remember back when I started web development, Netscape (3|4) was the browser everyone loved to hate. It was the one you had to bend everything to fit for (resize fix, anyone?). IE4, on the other hand, was fantastic. You could make it do all sorts of cool things really easily. I thought it was the best toy in the shop.
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...
Warning: May contain nuts