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.
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?
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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?
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
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!
Most developers I've talked to said they're going to drop ACID because of IE7 issues.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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?
...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?
Did any new Windows Vista technologies influence the development of IE7?
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?
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();
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?
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/
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).
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 ?
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