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Microsoft's Lack of Nightly Builds For IE

Posted by kdawson on from the think-of-the-developers dept.

Ricky writes "Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer — or at least something more frequent than months-to-years. Ars talks with Microsoft's general manager for IE, who says the IE9 development cycle will look much the same as previous versions. Not a great idea."

154 comments

  1. Obvious... by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer

    Um, because they never have and never will?

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    1. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For the same reason Apple doesn't release nightly builds of Safari? (Yes, I understand they release nightly builds of Webkit).

      Nobody else uses Trident (IE's rendering engine), and if Trident breaks, a lot of other stuff in Windows breaks. They don't want to release development versions of their browser, because their corporate customers don't want users breaking things.

      Frankly, I'm wondering what benefit nightlies would have for MS, who does pretty much all of their testing in-house.

    2. Re:Obvious... by hansamurai · · Score: 3, Informative

      The nightlies of Microsoft Bob basically killed all positive hype for the program.

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
    3. Re:Obvious... by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The better question would be why Ricky believes not releasing nightly builds is "not a great idea". What part of Microsoft's standard development cycle would benefit from nightly builds? Why would Microsoft decide to release nightly builds, which are inherently unstable, to a public that loves to pick on MS for producing unstable software? Why would MS risk some bored journalist writing a hit piece on IE 9 based on a particularly faulty nightly build just on the off chance someone out in the ether might give them some useful feedback on it?

      In short, why the hell would they release nightly builds?

    4. Re:Obvious... by skirtsteak_asshat · · Score: 1

      Nightly builds... you mean like OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE? Why doesn't M$ make OSS? Is that the question?

    5. Re:Obvious... by El+Lobo · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I wonder if dear kdawson really knows what "a build" is... or if he just saw the words "Microsoft" and "bad idea" and just began salivating...

      Shitty article. Nothing to see here....

      --
      It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
    6. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, meh.

    7. Re:Obvious... by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Yeah... my main thought initially was “they’re Microsoft – they don’t need a reason,” but that was only very shortly followed by “how on earth would that benefit them, us, or anyone else for that matter?”

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    8. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also there are a more than a few people working inside microsoft on Windows and IE who are probably running more frequent builds.

    9. Re:Obvious... by sohp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      'if Trident breaks, a lot of other stuff in Windows breaks'

      Which is, of course, precisely the reason to have a meaningful suite of automated tests and frequent build/test cycles. You'd rather work 6 months on something and then throw it over the wall to testers only to have them come back with either hundreds of regression failures (best case) or a handful of failures so severe they couldn't even get past the basic smoke test script?

      That's even before you get to your user community, which as the article points out happened with IE8, when the beta is sprung on the web development world with catastrophic amounts of breakage of existing pages?

    10. Re:Obvious... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      I’ve just had an epiphany.

      I hear there's a pill for that.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    11. Re:Obvious... by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Wait... was it the blue one, or the red one?

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    12. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously different products at Microsoft have different cycles and different build environments, but generally what you end up with is weekly builds at first, then as a product gets closer to beta it will go into daily builds. Now, they typically have many source trees that they need to reverse integrate (RI) occasionally (say monthly or so). So you get things like "winmain" or a lab tree for a group like BitLocker or another group doing networking features. Those groups check in code to their own branch and build and test there. Later, after the testing that goes on in that group, they RI the code into WinMain which has been getting daily builds and test passes all along. When it comes time to branch out a Beta or an RC they branch it and do a few builds of stabilization on it before releasing. So there ARE daily builds (at least at points during the cycle), but making these builds available externally would serve no real purpose.

    13. Re:Obvious... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Why would Microsoft decide to release nightly builds, which are inherently unstable, to a public that loves to pick on MS for producing unstable software?

      Simple. It means that bugs get found and fixed early before too much code depends on the incorrect behavior. The inability to fix bugs without breaking things has always been IE's greatest weakness.

      http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1451976&cid=30178810

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    14. Re:Obvious... by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Because corporate users would, of course, install the nightly build on all their user's machines, every night?

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    15. Re:Obvious... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      little blue pills, natch. Go get some - I own stock in the company :)

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    16. Re:Obvious... by QuietObserver · · Score: 1

      Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer

      Um, because they never have and never will?

      Or maybe because that would show the world how slowly they develop their software?

    17. Re:Obvious... by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Why do they care? They’re Microsoft.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    18. Re:Obvious... by QuietObserver · · Score: 1

      Good point. Nice comeback.

    19. Re:Obvious... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Which is, of course, precisely the reason to have a meaningful suite of automated tests and frequent build/test cycles.

      The story doesn't say that MS doesn't have nightlies and automated tests internally (I don't know how it is for IE specifically, but I am virtually certain that they do in fact have both; I would be very surprised if any MS project in development stage didn't have either).

      The story is about MS not releasing those nightlies to the end users

    20. Re:Obvious... by sohp · · Score: 1

      You're right, we don't know what the IE development team has or doesn't have. Still, what's the point of going to all the trouble to create a good automated build/test/release system and not have frequent deliveries to the end users - the web development community in this case? I've seen teams do that, and over the life of the project it felt like a net loss because the time and effort spent babysitting the build was wasted because break in the feedback loop by not getting it to end users meant that what was worked on didn't adequately track the real needs. Sure, the developers were able to get immediate information on the health of the system, but it didn't provide them with any information about the correctness.

    21. Re:Obvious... by elashish14 · · Score: 1

      Frankly, I'm wondering what benefit nightlies would have for MS, who does pretty much all of their testing in-house.

      Well it worked out well for Win7, didn't it? Doesn't mean IE would fall the same way (far from it in fact), but you'd think MS would learn something after a while.

      --
      I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    22. Re:Obvious... by cbhacking · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As somebody who has frequently participated in beta tests of lots of software, including Microsoft's, this is spot-on. Sure, their infrequent betas get some good feedback and some good bug reports, but they also get absolutely drowned in a deluge of people on the discussion boards (newsgroups, actually) who complain about:
      A) Nothing particular at all, they just signed on to complain.
      B) Stuff that's completely unrelated to the beta (such as a complaint about IE6 on the IE8 beta discussion)
      C) Stuff that's completely unrelated to the product (complaints about Excel on the IE8 board)
      D) "How dare Microsoft release [a beta of] this product with such-and-such [known, sometimes in release notes] bug!"
      E) "WTF I installed the latest version of X, and now I can't access my Y, so I'm switching to competitor Z and never buying anything Microsoft again!"
      F) Complaints about Beta 1 bugs during Beta 2 or RC test phases.
      G) Complaints from people who installed the software on a production machine, and expect Microsoft to provide support for it.

      These are the types of morons that Microsoft has to deal with. I've seen some of this type of behavior in other betas, to be sure, but some of the problems, especially D, E, and G, are most common on the MS betas. People just seem to expect that any code from MS will be production-ready and expects the company to stand behind their software as though it were a released product.

      Microsoft would be *insane* to release nightly builds to a group like that. A closed beta nightly program, maybe (participants culled from those who are actually useful and productive on the public beta) but certainly not open. Especially considering point F above; people already can't always keep up with the pace of the infrequent releases, and asking them to identify the build number they're using would be an exercise in futility for far too many.

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    23. Re:Obvious... by Ritchie70 · · Score: 1

      I haven't read the article (why break tradition) but the point is probably to make sure nobody's broken the build, and possibly to give them some of their own dog food to eat.

      So far as I know, very few closed-source development organizations release a nightly build to end users outside their company.

      But there may be a large group of Microsoft developers who get their systems auto-loaded every morning with the latest IE. Probably all of the IE developers at the least.

      --
      The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
    24. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should downloading a nightly build of a browser screw up my operating system? I mean really, WTF? Maybe the reason Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds is simply because no one would want to go through the hassle of trying to install two versions of IE at the same time.

      (Someone *please* correct me if I'm wrong about it being hard to install two versions of IE at the same time!)

    25. Re:Obvious... by sohp · · Score: 1

      My "why" was really more of a rhetorical question. In my experience, setting up and maintaining an automated build/test/deploy for a complex thing like IE is quite a lot of work, and I'm not sure any team would benefit from the effort if the only benefit was just keep the build from breaking. That could be done by having a designated team member manually build the system whenever there was time (hah) and a need to check it. No, to make a frequent build worth the effort, you need to get the resulting software in front of real users who can give feedback.

    26. Re:Obvious... by theguyfromsaturn · · Score: 1

      Not to mention they don't actually have a mechanism to submit bug reports.

      --
      I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
    27. Re:Obvious... by DocHoncho · · Score: 1

      Nobody else uses Trident (IE's rendering engine), and if Trident breaks, a lot of other stuff in Windows breaks. They don't want to release development versions of their browser, because their corporate customers don't want users breaking things.

      As if your bog-standard clueless Windows User is going to somehow download a nightly release and hose his system. It's aimed at developers and it makes sense because people would be able to test their websites against the browser and more than likely provide useful feedback to the IE team. The few determined idiots who hose their system with a nightly build are the same idiots who'd manage to hose their system one way or another. Not releasing nightlies solely on the off chance that some schmuck in Hoboken will fuck up his system is completely absurd.

      Then again, it really part of Microsoft culture to release nightly builds of anything. That's what major version releases are for. There's always room for a service pack or 5.

      --
      Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
    28. Re:Obvious... by DocHoncho · · Score: 1

      Nightly builds would be almost entirely used by MS shops to test their websites against. A nightly build would be hidden deep within some developer centric section of the website, Joe Sixpack wouldn't ever stumble across it. Worrying about the few clueless idiots who download alpha software w/o understanding what they're getting into are hardly even worth considering. As for people using nightlies to pick on Microsoft, those people will pick on MS nightly builds or no. So a buggy nightly gives some jackass on the internet cause to blog about how "ie9 is teh sux0rz." Oh noez.

      --
      Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
    29. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its very hard to Install two versions of Internet Explorer on a computer at the same time.
      Microsoft actually created a VirtualPC image containing windows xp and Internet explorer 6 (upgradeable to 7) and made it available for free downloading so that web developers could test their sites in both browsers.

    30. Re:Obvious... by praseodym · · Score: 1

      What if they'd just release their rendering engine, with a very simple UI which only lets testers enter a URL? After all, most of the problems are in IE's rendering engine, not in its UI. That would solve the problem of journalists etc. looking at it as a real product.

      Now, I do doubt the usefulness. We can't improve the code like we can with open source projects. Giving feedback about the rendering engine isn't all too useful either, because the IE team cares about standards nowadays and uses many tests themselves (W3C testsets, Acid3, CSS3.info). They already know the bugs, so the only thing we could conclude with a nightly is how far along they are.

    31. Re:Obvious... by praseodym · · Score: 2, Informative

      In recent interviews, the IE team explained that they run many testsets (W3C sets, Acid3, CSS3.info) themselves anyway. They have also contributed a lot of new tests to W3C (e.g. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/27/microsoft-submits-thousands-more-css-2-1-tests-to-the-w3c.aspx). They ask for feedback about their tests. The only thing we can do to improve IE is to make sure there's enough test coverage.

    32. Re:Obvious... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My "why" was really more of a rhetorical question.

      I've often wondered; What is the point of a rhetorical question?

    33. Re:Obvious... by DaVince21 · · Score: 1

      It's mostly only developers and people willing to test that use developer/nightly builds of browsers, though. The corporate customers are mostly stuck with IE6, anyway.

      --
      I am not devoid of humor.
  2. Re:good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Your eyes... is that moisture?

  3. Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by syousef · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What does MS offer nightly builds for??? It's just not how they work. They're a typical monolithic development house that deals only with releases and occasionally lets beta code out. There are benefits to the approach like not trying to shoot a moving target when it comes to bugs etc. People who've grown up with agile seem to think it's the only way to do quality assurance.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I like to compare it to taking a shit versus rubbing a quick one off.

      Microsoft saves up the feces, and savors it in their intestines for months and years. That lets it get really stinky and, well, shitty. Then, in one big blast, they crap it out all over everybody. That's just their way.

      The open source community prefers to rub a quick one off each night. Rub rub rub and the load has been blown.

      So it all depends on what you prefer. Would you rather get nightly blasts of jizm in your face, or would you prefer huge, steaming logs every year or so?

    2. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by sohp · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      How's that non-agile, waterfall QA working out for ya?

    3. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by PmanAce · · Score: 1

      ROFL! The only thing you know about agile is that is is a buzzword, that's it. My company uses agile effectlively, and everyone knows that agile is comprised of iterations (typically 1, 2, 4 weeks or whatever you want). At the end of these iterations, a release is done to the clients (typically management if it is in-house stuff). The iteration is comprised of stories to be completed. Nightly builds are just automated builds that are done daily or nigthly, hence the name. This has nothing to do with agile, why would it? Makes no sense to show clients code that is incomplete and between iterations... LOL@YOU.

      --
      Tired of my customary (Score:1)
    4. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, waterfall is not the only alternative to agile. In fact, your comment represents one of the biggest critisms of agile. It misrepresents the alternatives and in many ways seems more like a religion than a development methology.

      http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    5. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by sohp · · Score: 1

      Wow, you can't come up with anything newer than a link to Yegge's tired old disproven rant?

    6. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      The vast majority of companies with nightly builds to NOT give those nightly builds to customers. They're for internal testing and to make integration of changes easier to manage. Nightly builds will almost always have unfinished or untested features; because if everything was complete and tested then they may as well tag it as an official release.

      I sincerely hope that even Agile software houses don't release nightly builds to customers.

    7. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by syousef · · Score: 1

      How's that non-agile, waterfall QA working out for ya?

      How's that constantly changing never quite know what you're building agile shitfight working for you?

      See it ain't hard to be immature. It ain't clever either. Some incredible projects have been built with both methodologies and there have been some abysmal failures with both too.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    8. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by syousef · · Score: 1

      ROFL! The only thing you know about agile is that is is a buzzword, that's it.

      Wow. You're an amazing person. You must be very well paid to be able to work out how much I do or do not know about agile from a single post. Yes that was sarcasm. In case your too obtuse it means I think you're a wanker and you know nothing about me.

      My company uses agile effectlively, and everyone knows that agile is comprised of iterations (typically 1, 2, 4 weeks or whatever you want).

      Everybody knows squat. I've seen agile applied well and I've seen it applied poorly and everything in between.

      The iteration is comprised of stories to be completed. Nightly builds are just automated builds that are done daily or nigthly, hence the name.

      Thanks for the info. I thought I should return the favour by providing equaly non-obvious information so here it is: Green is a colour.

      This has nothing to do with agile, why would it? Makes no sense to show clients code that is incomplete and between iterations... LOL@YOU.

      LOL@YOU? Really? I hope you're more professional at work.

      Nightly builds are typically NOT complete code, you moron.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    9. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 1

      The majority of his criticisms are very valid. The fact is, there are alternatives to agile and waterfall, but agile shills prefer not to talk about them...

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    10. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by sohp · · Score: 1

      Which ones can you show are valid and have not been addressed by agile?

    11. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by sohp · · Score: 1

      How's that constantly changing never quite know what you're building agile shitfight working for you?

      It works quite well, actually, when you have frequent releases to the user, because they can say "yes this is good" or "no this isn't good", and only OCD types really worry about knowing exactly what's what at any time. In fact, software projects tend to delude themselves into thinking they know what they've got when they really don't. This leads to all kinds of problems later when the users see it and find out that what they got is nothing like what they were told they were going to get.

      Think of it this way -- you're crossing a swift-flowing river in the middle of a black night on a small boat. Would you rather do it the waterfall way: shine a bright light at the dock on the opposite bank before you start, then turn it off and start rowing towards where you shone the line and expect to get there, or agile way: carry a light with you and alternate rowing and shining it across the river to see which way that dock is?

    12. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by cujo_1111 · · Score: 1

      The major difference is that rubbing a quick one off actually encourages a premature release cycle and your users end up gradually getting less satisfied with your performance and go elsewhere... No matter how many dumps you take, it doesn't affect the performance of the next one :)

      --
      If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
    13. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously we have different ideas of Agile. To me, Agile is a small release with realistic goals every 2 weeks or so and plenty of feedback. A nightly build is for Alpha testers, and users are not only unwelcome, but a hindrance.

      The "2 week" frame (or whatever interval you prefer). is supposed to be just long enough to make a credible, benchmark while ensuring that time wasted going down the inevitable blind alleys is minimized.

      If I wanted my portrait painted, and demanded to critique it every time the artist switched brush colors, I'd probably get assaulted. And I'd deserve it.

    14. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by cujo_1111 · · Score: 1

      Then why are we discussing MS and their choice not to release nightly builds?

      --
      If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
    15. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Alpha830RulZ · · Score: 1

      The vast majority of companies with nightly builds to NOT give those nightly builds to customers.

      I know of one, who does so, apparently quite successfully. I played golf this summer with their director of Q/A. I'm struggling to remember their name and what they do, but it was some web based SaaS offering with 300-ish employees in downtown Seattle (we were playing golf at Willows Run, which is just down the street from Microsoft Intergalactic in Redmond). We got to talking agile, and releases, and he said their architecture -assumes- a nightly build and rollout. He described the purest "write the test first" implementation I have ever heard credibly described, and they were using it straight to production through what sounded like a pretty tightly run promotion to production cycle.

      Interestingly, they had just been purchased by Microsoft.

      --
      I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
    16. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Retard.

    17. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by syousef · · Score: 1

      Excellent. So as a developer you're not just rude, abusive and unprofessional, you're also a one trick pony who worships at the alter a single methodology, and have an uncanny knack for convoluted useless metaphor. Please file your resume here in the filing cabinet marked "Waste bin". Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out. I'd really like to think you're just trolling but unfortunately I have had the misfortune of working with your ilk before.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    18. Re:Agile isn't the only legitimate way! by smellotron · · Score: 1

      ...only OCD types really worry about knowing exactly what's what at any time...

      Not all software has the same cost of failure. If a particular bug can cost tens of thousands of dollars, I sure as hell want to know exactly what releases had that bug. There's nothing OCD about this desire.

  4. Security Updates? by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Umm, isn't that what Update Tuesdays are for? Constantly patching IE along with other OS updates?

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Security Updates? by CannonballHead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The author of the article seems to think IE should be treated separately from Windows.

      I guess Konqueror should have it's own update system, the OS update system isn't good enough?

    2. Re:Security Updates? by spartin92 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I guess Konqueror should have it's own update system, the OS update system isn't good enough?

      Its, not it is.

    3. Re:Security Updates? by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Touche-with-the-accent-that-I'm-lazy-to-put-on. I usually try to be good about that, too.

    4. Re:Security Updates? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i thought the same thing when i read the author of the article say "then" instead of "than". of course no one in the comments mentions that, but no one here actually reads the articles.

    5. Re:Security Updates? by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Touché

      Also, I’m = I’m.

      Okay, I’ll shut up... and damn slashcode for not letting me use the … character code.

      Wait a second... oh my god... did they really fix Unicode?
      “Touché.”
      It looks right in the preview. Just my luck it’ll screw it up as soon as I post.

      It still doesn’t allow arbitrary characters, though... just certain ones. The ellipsis just melts into oblivion...

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    6. Re:Security Updates? by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      They did? Hmmm. Tèstíng.

      I am shöcked.

    7. Re:Security Updates? by CecilPL · · Score: 1

      I am shöcked.

      What a coincidence! I just bought one of those at Ikea last week.

    8. Re:Security Updates? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait a second... oh my god... did they really fix Unicode?
      “Touché.”

      No, it's just that é and a few other western European accented Roman characters within the 8-bit range are permitted. Try quoting some Russian or Greek and it'll still fail abysmally.

    9. Re:Security Updates? by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      AC, see>>

      It still doesn’t allow arbitrary characters, though... just certain ones.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    10. Re:Security Updates? by shivamib · · Score: 1

      Hans Landa, is that you?

  5. Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just because some open-source linux losers release nightly builds, doesn't mean that you should.

    And now that I've assured this post of being marked troll or flamebait, the answer is they (sorta) do, probably mostly monthly builds though. Per the development system in place, all those patches we get once a month for everything would be considered new builds per Linux/OSS standards. THey just don't release the ENTIRE ie package over and over with new build numbers.

  6. Confused about article, any developers here? by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

    Although many developers may not really care much for nightlies or even point releases, it keeps them in the loop, and keeps them interested.

    This confused me. Many developers don't care about them, but they do care about them... is that basically what the Ars article is saying?

    1. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Additionally, the article seems to take some things for granted...

      the reality is that every other browser has a more regular release cycle than IE does, and that keeps them relevant.

      I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!

      The result is a strong perception that IE is lagging behind, no matter how great the major release versions are.

      The perception that IE is lagging behind has nothing to do with a bad development cycle, it's more tied to ... bad development and a not-very-good product.

      and the browser's updates are pushed through Windows Update. The actual browser doesn't have its own updating system, and this is a large part of the reason that over 40 percent of users are still using IE6 and IE7.

      That's an interesting assertion. The only backup he gives are numbers for browser stats.

      On the whole, this seems like one guy doing an editorial and talking off the cuff. That's how it struck me, anyways.

    2. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      The perception that IE is lagging behind has nothing to do with a bad development cycle, it's more tied to ... bad development and a not-very-good product.

      And opening up the process with, perhaps, a chance to incorporate feedback early in the process is a great way to address this. You want to give people what they want? be more responsive and don't cast the featureset in stone based on whatthe product manager says.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    3. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by jamesh · · Score: 1

      I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!

      I thought I read in the news that they were pulling the plug on that in 2011...

    4. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most users are still using IE 6 because their company won't moved them beyond it.

    5. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by stephanruby · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hopefully, tomorrow's snapshot of the same article will be better.

    6. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by hkmwbz · · Score: 1

      I guess Opera's release and development cycle(s) is why it is so popular!

      Actually, Opera doesn't have nightlies. Weeklies at best most of the time. And there's no "bleeding-edge" build available. They have the next major version cooking apparently, but they aren't sharing anything until they have exhausted 10.x it seems. Firefox and Chrome, on the other hand, have nightlies of both current and future releases.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
    7. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by hkmwbz · · Score: 1

      Pulling the plug on what? Opera? Your comment is not making sense.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
    8. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by daath93 · · Score: 1

      They are pulling the plug on Oprah in 2011, you uninformed clod!

      Or at least I believe that was the basis of his...jest...

    9. Re:Confused about article, any developers here? by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

      The perception that IE is lagging behind comes from IE lagging behind. Not having any updates for year after year, and playing catch-up and copying features.

      They have repeatedly stated they are not interested in dog-and-pony show tricks like ACID tests, instead focusing on what people use and what would make things easier for developers.

      While this would make sense for an isolated company with an isolated product, they have to remember that their engine should render pages that were made by a non-microsoft product according to standards instead of by reading microsoft documentation. Microsoft is probably testing against their own test cases nightly, and having other people bother them about standards compliance would distract from their mission, whatever that is.

      Again - their goal is internal compliance, and offering nightly builds externally does nothing to meet that. As long as that continues, you will have no nightlies combined with perception of lagging behind. They are intertwined.

  7. Yea they have it by js3 · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the developers have one, or maybe something that can be done ondemand. No point having one for the public imo

    --
    did you forget to take your meds?
    1. Re:Yea they have it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I read the title, the first thing I thought was that it was about the absence of *internal* nightly builds. If they didn't have that, that would be a real wtf. But public nightlies? I mean, they have this mysterious so-called "closed-source" business model. Where development takes place, like, *inside* the company.

      They don't need public nightlies. Duh.

  8. Normal by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WTF? Most companies don't release nightly builds of their software. Why on earth are we singling out Microsoft, and only one of their products at that? Infrequent releases are the norm, not the exception, and while you may argue that it should change, it's ludicrous to single out one program among thousands for following the standard practice.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    1. Re:Normal by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Presumably because, while IE is quite similar to the class of "proprietary software", it is quite unusual among the desktop browsers.

      Whether or not you think that it is a good idea for there to be IE nightly builds, it isn't exactly absurd to judge a product by the standards of other similar products, rather than other products with similar licenses.

    2. Re:Normal by dingen · · Score: 4, Informative

      WTF? Most companies don't release nightly builds of their software.

      Not when it comes to web browsers. You can get nightlies from every single other major browser, except for IE.

      --
      Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
    3. Re:Normal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Browsers are turning into a different game. Webkit has kicked browser development into overdrive. We're seeing new features coming out at a pace not seen in browser development in maybe 12 years. Firefox already had the nightly builds, but they're following suit and focusing more on features. In the face of the speed of the competition, IE's current development model, even if typical, looks laughably slow in comparison.

    4. Re:Normal by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You can get nightlies from other browsers, but if you're not a developer or tester, why would you want to? You're just going to get buggy software that way. Firefox makes sense, because it's an open source browser and depends upon customers to also be testers.

    5. Re:Normal by mahadiga · · Score: 1

      I think nightly builds are possible only if you have an upfront and perfect design.

      --
      I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
    6. Re:Normal by BitZtream · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Safari != webkit, Chromium != Google Chrome. Sorry to burst your bubble.

      Webkit is a rendering engine. Its pretty useless without supporting code. The link you gave links you to a loadable library essentially. The app icon you get for OSX actually runs a script that has Safari use the webkit library from the package, but the UI and everything else is still the same old Safari thats installed on the system.

      If someone bothered to put the effort into it, you could stuff IE's renderer into Safari on Windows, or you could stuff Firefox's Gecko into Safari on Windows or Mac.

      Chromium is not Chrome. They may share a common tree, but they aren't the same either. Chrome may be built from a snapshot of the chromium tree, but that doesn't give you nightlies of chrome.

      So now we're down to ... Firefox is the only browser with Nightly builds.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    7. Re:Normal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even Chrome dev channel has roughly weekly builds. WebKit isn't Safari--but can be dropped in to replace the engine that Safari uses. And the engine is the bit that matters here.

    8. Re:Normal by Simetrical · · Score: 1

      . . . Chromium != Google Chrome. . . .

      Chromium is not Chrome. They may share a common tree, but they aren't the same either. Chrome may be built from a snapshot of the chromium tree, but that doesn't give you nightlies of chrome.

      Okay, what kind of logic is that? A nightly is by definition a daily build that's a snapshot of the development trunk, which official releases are eventually built off of. The Chrome developers themselves use Chromium for development. It's a nightly build in every sense of the term.

      Even if for some reason you don't buy that logic, Chrome has a Dev Channel, which releases official Google-branded Chrome builds every week or so. So, it still has weekly builds.

      That gives us three out of four non-IE browsers with nightly or weekly builds, and the fourth has nightlies of the most important component (in particular, the only component that's interesting to web developers). What were you saying again?

      --
      MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
  9. Agile??? WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Nightly builds has absolutely nothing to do with that retarded buzzword 'Agile'.

    Nightly builds is just that, nightly builds. Trying to assert that nightly builds are 'agile' is like some cheeseburger and curly fries stained Star Trek tshirt wearing bearded GNU freak trying to claim releasing source code is 'GNU'.

    1. Re:Agile??? WTF? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      And the story isn't about having nightly builds. It's about releasing nightly builds.

      Presumably, this may have some relation to Agile, since the latter seeks "constant feedback from the users", using most current state of the project.

  10. Why the hell should they? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A long release schedule gives Microsoft time to squash bugs and make a single presentable product that will have a better reputation than your average nightly build. It gives developers a stable standard to work with without worrying that today's version will have different quirks than yesterday's version. Finally, what would nightly releases gain Microsoft or developers that the standard alpha/beta/release schedule does not?

    This whole article needs to be modded troll.

    1. Re:Why the hell should they? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      A long release schedule ensures that Microsoft has to find and squash every bug themselves to make a single presentable product that will have a better reputation than your average nightly build. It ensures developers see only a stable standard and worry that this year's version will have different quirks than last year's version and that they won't find out until it is too late to do anything except hack workarounds for the browser bugs into their site. What harm would nightly releases cause Microsoft [elided] that the standard alpha/beta/release schedule does not?

      FTFY.

      The whole point of nightly builds is so that the developer community can check early and often to see how browser changes will affect them. By the time a public beta comes out, the software is baked and only critical bugs are likely to get fixed. Browser vendors have limited testing resources and cannot practically test every website. Nightly builds allow developers to test their sites, spot places where a browser deviates from W3C-compliant behavior, and file bugs early enough that they actually stand some chance of being fixed instead of having to hack around the browser's bugs for an entire release cycle (and often for years after that since many people don't bother to upgrade their browsers). And when a browser is rolling out new features like HTML5 and CSS3 bits, nightly builds provide invaluable feedback from real-world testers trying to integrate the functionality into their own projects. Sometimes they find bugs, but quite often they find problems with the specification itself that need to be addressed across all browsers. That's something that doesn't work nearly as well without the rapid feedback of a nightly build program. Significant flaws in the specification will almost certainly never get fixed at all if the browser that first introduces those features doesn't bother to show them to web developers until the features are mostly baked.

      Basically, web browsers are just a giant public API, and need to be handled in the same way as any other API review. When you create a new API, you get an initial review, then you get other folks to dogfood the API within your company, then you seed it to developers really early and often so that they can test and experiment with the API more broadly, then a couple years later, you publish the final API and make it publicly available. Nightly builds are the seed phase, just with broader distribution because the developer base (web developers) and the installed software base (web sites) are both at least a couple of orders of magnitude larger, and more frequent because the rate of developer-critical changes in a browser tends to be much more rapid than the rate of change in any single OS-level API.

      Also, nightly builds keep you honest. They reduce the risk of multi-month delays in getting out a usable release by forcing developers to keep preliminary code cleanly compartmentalized so that it can be easily disabled. This ensures that you don't have long periods of time in which the nightly builds don't build, don't function usably, etc., thus shortening your bake cycles considerably.

      So there are a lot of ways that nightly builds would be beneficial, not just for web developers, but for Microsoft as well.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:Why the hell should they? by mikefocke · · Score: 1

      Microsoft releases Alfas and Betas to many different communities of testers

      And those releases have multiple cycles and run a long time so there is ample opportunity for developers of dependent s/w and web pages to test against the coming release and provide feedback to Microsoft. How many builds of W95 did I load...including one from floppies that took 20+ hours of feeding floppies before the first boot.

      I wonder if Microsoft might just have as many in-house testers using the daily builds of IE as there are total testers for FF, Opera, Safari etc al. They are after all, one humongously huge company. And not everyone grabs the nightly build of the latest OS or browser even from developers who provide it.

      In my old place of employment, we had nightly builds and the developers actually were developing on the OS for which they had submitted updates the day before. So if there was a major bug, they felt/found it first. But the release cycle was more like yearly because that is the way the customers wanted it. They were betting important things on the stability of the s/w. They certainly didn't want anything but a long release cycle in which they were heavily involved. It wasn't released until major customers signed off that it didn't break their apps. Daily builds would have distracted them from their mission...luring them into daily regression testing and taking resources from supporting their existing app release and developing for the next release.

      Different goals for corporations/agencies. And so different development, customer exposure for comment and release cycles are appropriate.

    3. Re:Why the hell should they? by daath93 · · Score: 1

      Its irresponsible as a site designer who designs sites viewable for for the masses to design sites that that make use of bleeding edge technologies in browser development. Unless your target audience is the 2% that downloads the new version of IE the same month it comes out, then what does it matter? Yes, its arguable that Microsoft has and can break even "safe" code but not so much that it generally will make a site unusable (again assuming the designer is not a complete fool).

      Internet Explorer 8 was final released March 19, 2009. Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit was released with the beta March 5, 2008. So, do you really need MORE than a year to get your site together?

  11. Who is Many? by clinko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer."

    Whoever "Many" is, they seem to always be interviewed by Ars and FoxNews.

    1. Re:Who is Many? by bonch · · Score: 1

      Uh, they do? What a random, baseless comment.

    2. Re:Who is Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoever "Many" is, they seem to always be interviewed by Ars and FoxNews.

      You're right, it's always them that are always subjective with their absolutes.

    3. Re:Who is Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Many believe this was a random baseless comment.

    4. Re:Who is Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many believe this was a random baseless comment.

      Many Bothans died to bring you this information.

    5. Re:Who is Many? by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      I found that comment fair and balanced.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    6. Re:Who is Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, watch MSNBC.
      Not even most ultra-lib Microsoft hating slashdotters seem to notice the MS in the name.

    7. Re:Who is Many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ask me about Grim Fandango.

  12. OMG My Eyes! by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Funny

    The nightlies of Microsoft Bob basically killed all positive hype for the program. I don't want to see Microsoft Bob in nighties! It was bad enough seeing Bill Gates wiggling his ass for the cameras.

    Oh, nightlies ...

    I'll have to ask Clippy for linux and get back to you on that ...

    1. Re:OMG My Eyes! by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't want to see Microsoft Bob in nighties!

      Hey... be thankful he wasn’t nude, like Clippy was...

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    2. Re:OMG My Eyes! by game+kid · · Score: 1

      Clippy: It looks like you're getting a hard-on...

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    3. Re:OMG My Eyes! by clone53421 · · Score: 1

      Ha! Like I’m going to take advice on that from a guy with a paperclip dick.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  13. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sky still blue, people wonder when it will turn orange with florescent stripes

    In later news: dogs still sniff butts, why now after nothing happened.

    This just in, kdawson still posting unimpressive useless articles

  14. so Microsoft doesn't publish nightly builds of IE by mmell · · Score: 1
    Uh, just to ask - why does anybody think there are nightly builds of Insecure Exploder?

    Firefox, Opera, Safari - sure, these guys are in active development, frequently introducing new or improved functionality to their products. Ditto for most FOSS products.

    MicroSoft, OTOH, uses a proprietary closed-source model of software as the basis for their business practices. Within that model, development on any product takes place when there's a fiscal incentive to do so; otherwise, existing (revenue-generating) products are left alone to do what they do best - generate revenue.

    Is there a good business-case reason for MicroSoft to invest in continuous, nightly development of a product which is not sold directly but rather included in the purchase of another product (MS-Windows)? Is Insecure Exploder so vital a part of their OS that it will represent a deal-breaker for the huge number of enterprises which have implemented and continue to implement MicroSoft technologies?

  15. Support issues by bonch · · Score: 1

    Do you really want to be a tech support department dealing with the possibility of your users running unknown versions of Internet Explorer with the potential to be a different version every single day?

  16. Of course not.... by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

    As a key product in a proprietary OS, why would you want to run nightly builds of IE? With Firefox my browser may be unstable, but at least the rest of my system stays stable, but with IE a lot of Windows components use Trident and that isn't going to be a good thing. Plus, with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away, even security vulnerabilities aren't promptly fixed on IE, let alone user suggestions....

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Of course not.... by sohp · · Score: 1

      The IE guys are going to have to fix any problems in how it plays nice with Windows anyway, and if the development process is so broken that they can't even keep O/S-breaking regressions out of the builds, there's a problem. The whole point of having frequent builds is to identify errors sooner, while it's cheaper and easier to fix them, than later, after the edifice has been built on the unstable foundation.

      with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away, even security vulnerabilities aren't promptly fixed on IE, let alone user suggestions....

      I suggest that's the whole point of wanting IE to have a more frequent build and release cycle -- getting rapid and frequent feedback along with frequent builds enables rapid fixes.

    2. Re:Of course not.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Plus, with Firefox if you file a bug they [...] generally fix it right away

      No they dont.

      https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90268

    3. Re:Of course not.... by Bungie · · Score: 1

      The IE guys are going to have to fix any problems in how it plays nice with Windows anyway, and if the development process is so broken that they can't even keep O/S-breaking regressions out of the builds, there's a problem.

      The problem is that IE is tightly coupled with several other Windows components. This means it can break many other apps which can depend on it, or also can break itself if it depends on something which is not available.

      For example, when IE7 came out people were extracting the installer package and installing the individual components inside to bypass the WGA check. If they didn't install the XMLLite component before the IE application installation, it would break several applications including Explorer. It could be fixed if the user booted to Safe Mode and installed the XMLLite package or DLL afterwards, but many users probably didn't know that.

      This is exactly the kind of thing Microsoft wants to avoid...people breaking the system because they don't have the proper dependencies installed or some other factor with their configuration. It's much easier to roll it all together into a release canidate where they can be sure it includes everything it needs.

      --
      The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
    4. Re:Of course not.... by sohp · · Score: 1

      A monolithic blob of pieces that have tight coupling between each other and leak those dependencies to other pieces that shouldn't even KNOW about another applications dependencies in the first place is bad software engineering. Again, the article is correct in urging the frequent build/test/release to the public cycle because it would highlight the dependency errors quickly and allow them to be fixed before they become a problem. We all know DLL hell (or RPM hell -- linux doesn't get a pass here, either) and the way out is to discover the dependencies early and break them soon.

      It's not that MS shouldn't do it because they have tight couplings in IE, it's that the IE team NEEDS to do it to identify and fix the tight coupling problems. That's basic stuff in correct software engineering.

    5. Re:Of course not.... by daath93 · · Score: 1

      The only thing keeping me using firefox is the add-ons. Firefox's wonky instability and constant updating has me feeling that I can't rely on it every time i need my porn fix.

    6. Re:Of course not.... by Simetrical · · Score: 1

      As a key product in a proprietary OS, why would you want to run nightly builds of IE? With Firefox my browser may be unstable, but at least the rest of my system stays stable, but with IE a lot of Windows components use Trident and that isn't going to be a good thing.

      WebKit is heavily used in OS X too, AFAIK, but they still provide nightlies. It doesn't replace the existing version on your system, it's an extra one that you can manually run as part of specific programs. So you'd use the nightly build to test, but other programs would keep using the standard system build.

      It also doesn't have to be called "Internet Explorer". It could be called something different, like "Trident Development Version" or something. Firefox nightlies are called Minefield.

      Plus, with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away

      You must have only filed really trivial or critical bugs, then. I've filed five bugs. One is WORKSFORME (turned out to be a broken font), one is DUPLICATE (to a bug rated critical and open since 2002), and the other three remain open. No project under the sun is able to fix most reported bugs quickly; there are just too many things to do.

      --
      MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
  17. Nightmare by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    They are built at night too, and you get more or less the same security feeling.

  18. More Microsoft Bashing by maxrate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is the finger always at Microsoft? I vote we embargo the use of the word Microsoft on Slashdot, say, for a month. Usually any Microsoft related post is biased and ill-spirited - getting very old. There are countless software vendors that do not release nightly builds. As much as I adore Slashdot, all the MS haters on here often make me feel as if I'm associating myself with a 'new low' of computer users (sometimes). Kinda like finding yourself in the company of a bunch of racists. It's very fashionable on \. to hate Microsoft. Don't like their stuff?...simply use something else and STFU. I do agree with the article's opinion of saying the update process Microsoft uses is broken - I think Microsoft can do better.

    1. Re:More Microsoft Bashing by dbIII · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why is the finger always at Microsoft?

      Because many of us use their stuff and despair at the problems that arise that we cannot fix and the Microsoft will ignore.
      That creates a culture of just complaining to each other about the company in general. We say to each other things like "this was the company that was given the BSD source code on a plate and still couldn't get even ping right" and other things non-techies would find completely irrelevent.
      Just filter the MS stories out - there's not going to be much else other than jaded comments from those subjected to years of MS hype that treat every announcement from MS as a lie. In hindsight they may be right nearly every time, but to start with it's a preconception. It's not like racism, it's not "all dogs bite" but instead "that ornery blue eyed dog is going to bite me again I just know it".

    2. Re:More Microsoft Bashing by BillKaos · · Score: 1

      While I think Microsoft is right with its release cycle, the article is based on the fact the every other browser vendor is releasing snapshots.

      For me, the biggest picture is interaction and strategy, not builds. In Webkit, Gecko and Presto, if you are a web developer, you can interact with the engine developer. They have mailing list, good bucktrackers, and a *good attitude* towards fixing bugs.

      For Microsoft, if you are using Linux for development (a pretty common case I'd guess) you cannot even try. I doubt Windows users do fare any better. By the way, Windows 7 is not bad, but not usable yet.

    3. Re:More Microsoft Bashing by bguiz · · Score: 1

      It's very fashionable on \. to hate Microsoft.

      You sir, irk me with your choice of slash direction in '\.'!

  19. Maybe it takes more than a day to build it? by kriston · · Score: 1

    The Microsoft build labs has been described in many books but one thing that stood out to me was the alleged fact that most builds, like Windows, take well over 24 hours to finish. Given how tied into the operating system that MSIE is, I suppose that a build of MSIE would require a significant build of Windows as well.

    --

    Kriston

    1. Re:Maybe it takes more than a day to build it? by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Microsoft build labs has been described in many books but one thing that stood out to me was the alleged fact that most builds, like Windows, take well over 24 hours to finish.

      Well, there's yer problem... The are probably running their build server on windows. Now if they ran a nice Linux build server...

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    2. Re:Maybe it takes more than a day to build it? by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, right. After buying Hotmail and "converting" it from a few number of Linux servers to a ridiculous number of Windows servers, I'm sure they've learned their lesson!

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    3. Re:Maybe it takes more than a day to build it? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Informative

      Given how tied into the operating system that MSIE is, I suppose that a build of MSIE would require a significant build of Windows as well.

      I find it highly unlikely. In the end, IE lives in its own library, and any OS services that may need it call through that via stabilized COM interfaces. There's no reason why Windows can't be build against precompiled IE binaries and .idl files describing the interface, and similarly no reason why IE can't be built against the most up-to-date Windows SDK headers.

  20. This simply does not make sense by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am not a fan of Internet Explorer at all - however I know people who are, and I can't imagine this mattering to them in the least.

    Heck, I can't imagine the vast majority of Firefox or Safari/Chrome users caring about those available snapshots; and I say that as someone who has used nightly builds for both those products fairly frequently!

    This just seems silly on the face of it. "Microsoft doesn't follow Firefox's development path", complains a Firefox fan.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  21. Looks like I'm not part of them by hrimhari · · Score: 1

    Many wonder why Microsoft doesn't offer nightly builds of Internet Explorer

    For some reason, that never crossed my mind. I always assumed that it just wasn't their release model.

    --
    http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
  22. Coming up next by Sowbug · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can bees think? A new study indicates that no, they cannot.

  23. This story is bookmarked by Osrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Filed under "weirdest story ever to appear on /."

    Next week we can discuss the outrage that stems from Microsoft's refusal to offer free back massages on the New York subway.

    1. Re:This story is bookmarked by il1019 · · Score: 0

      At least in that case they would be giving something that people wanted. I bet there is a much greater demand for massages than there are for even-buggier-than-normal builds of IE.

    2. Re:This story is bookmarked by Bluebottel · · Score: 1

      This is just in, update your bookmark.

  24. Stupid design decisions by diegocg · · Score: 1

    They probably can't do it easily - IE is so tied to the internal of Windows that installing a nightly IE you are touching too many internals that could break easily. And it replaces your current IE install. That's why I never test IE beta/RC releases.

    Now we can see how stupid it was to tie IE so strongly to the rest of the system. If Windows was a reasonably designed piece of software, Microsoft could several versions of IE at the same time. You could try a nigthly IE9 build without deleting the stable version.

    1. Re:Stupid design decisions by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      IE is so tied to the internal of Windows that installing a nightly IE you are touching too many internals that could break easily.

      Sounds like a good reason for not making it tied to windows. Ah, poetic justice, sort of.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  25. It doesn't need a nightly build. by icepick72 · · Score: 1

    It' not like IE is open for people to download the nightly builds. I'm sure that Microsoft and its employees compile IE many times even though it might not be on the "nightly build" schedule in the most official sense.

  26. They DO do nightlies... by White+Shade · · Score: 2, Informative

    From what I've gleaned from various Microsoft blogs, they DO release nightly builds, internally to all their own testers and employees.

    That way, as far as I can tell, they get all the benefit of nightly builds, with absolutely zero of the downsides in terms of company image and dealing with buggy software in the wild.

    --
    ìì!
    1. Re:They DO do nightlies... by heffrey · · Score: 1

      They probably have more people using nightly builds of IE than there are folk using nightly builds of FF!! Oh the irony!

    2. Re:They DO do nightlies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      with absolutely zero of the downsides in terms of company image and dealing with buggy software in the wild.

      Windows 7 is buggy, so is Vista & XP. In fact, I cant think of a single piece of MS software that doesn't crash a lot more than it should.
      So how is releasing one more piece of buggy software going to change that. Its not like most corporate & home users would install it anyway.

    3. Re:They DO do nightlies... by BZ · · Score: 1

      Last I checked, there were about 200k-300k Firefox nightly users. Microsoft has around 90k employees as of 2008 (worldwide).

      So unlikely, but at least possibly similar ballpark if every single MS employee uses the IE nightlies (again, unlikely).

    4. Re:They DO do nightlies... by heffrey · · Score: 1

      Where do you get that figure of 200-300k FF nightly users. That's mighty impressive.

    5. Re:They DO do nightlies... by BZ · · Score: 1

      > Where do you get that figure of 200-300k FF nightly users

      I believe it comes from the update server (which is basically contacted by nightlies every so often to see if there's an update to the next nightly, just like other builds contact it to see if there's an update). Then you extrapolate from the number of update checks. It's a rough estimate, of course; as are all usage numbers.

      And maybe I'm confusing the nightly and beta, of course! If I find the source where I saw the number, I'll comment.

  27. Re:so Microsoft doesn't publish nightly builds of by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe you hadn't noticed, but development of IE7 and IE8 have not been tied to a specific OS at all. IE7 was released before Vista and installs on XP, and IE8 well before Win 7 and that installs on Vista and XP. Microsoft has said that IE9 will be released in 2010, while Windows 8 is set for 2012. IE and Office are both on different development timetables than Windows -- although Office is almost always released 6 to 8 months after a desktop Windows release. Sure, they're linked in some senses because each product has a target platform, but otherwise there is no specific tie-in.

    Microsoft's fiscal incentive is to maintain market dominance and some semblance of standards compliance. If they lose too much market share, developers may not create websites to handle IE quirks any longer. Then IE will falter, and MS will not be able to develop web apps only for IE, which is part of their strategy to lock-in users to Windows.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  28. IE Feedback system EXISTS by ProfessionalCookie · · Score: 1

    Moreover I tried to sign up for the IE bug feedback system.

    1. It required me to get a live account. I did.

    2. It required me to "register" with my live account. It didn't work with Webkit so I fired up Firefox, then I did.

    3. It required email confirmation of my live account. I confirmed it.

    4. It asked me to register to be able to vote on issues (GOTO 2)

    No wonder the feedback is minimal and useless (as in not real bug reporting). There's probably no one who cares on the other end anyway

  29. STFU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Same to you buddy. If you don't like what someone else is saying STFU and toon out.

    That's about the 5th time today that I've seen STFU posts moderated insightful. There's nothing insightful about STFU posts.

    There are countless software vendors that do not release nightly builds.

    This is the only line in your whole post that has anything to do with the discussion and it's already been said.

  30. joelonsoftware would disapprove by turing_m · · Score: 1

    I refer to this article.

    I would assume that the Microsoft Excel team did it this way as well, since Joel mentions it in his article. But they also wrote their own compiler because everyone else's was crap, and still managed to ship on time.

    --
    If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
  31. McDonalds' Nightly Builds... by pcardno · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nightly builds, if they were released every time:

    Bun
    Bun
    Bun
    Bun
    Meat
    Meat
    Bun + Meat
    Bun + Meat
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour
    GHERKIN!
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt++
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt+++++
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + Tomato
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + That Other Stuff
    Bun + Meat + Meaty Flavour + Gherkin + Salt + That Other Slightly Better Stuff
    Quarter Pounder With Cheese

    As an IT Manager for one of the 100 biggest companies in the world, I couldn't give a flying f*ck about the inbetween. All I want to know is what we're getting. And if it breaks a part of our fundamental application stack, we'll complain or won't use it. If I want something in the release, I'll lobby for it. If you want to be part of the IE development cycle, sign an agreement with MS to be a part of it, then you'll get the alphas and beta.

    Total non-story.

    --
    --- Band: Joey Ultra
    1. Re:McDonalds' Nightly Builds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tl;dr

  32. Some tester actually want to get paid... by klubar · · Score: 1

    Testing is a job. Asking the public to do the internal development testing doesn't work if you want to earn a living selling software (or the software ecosystem). I haven't seem many nightly builds of the Mac OS, or lots of other for sale software.

  33. WAAAH we wants development browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure *Microsoft* has nightly builds of IE internally, they have nightly builds of practically everything. Whiny guy writing column just doesn't have access to them.

    Seriously, doesn't the released versions of IE suck hard enough for you?

  34. Re:Obvious...Pre-Christmas gift,shoes,handbag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    coolforsale issues problems did not deliver ordered a product failed to send duplicated charge credit card stolen cheat spam coolforsale complaint

    (fair is fair - we don't want your spam, you don't want to be linked with negative keywords, so go away or I shall taunt you an n+1 time)

  35. The Evil is baked right in! by wildstoo · · Score: 1

    I just assumed this was just an extension of Otto von Bismarck's famous quote: "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made."

  36. Er, no by Safety+Cap · · Score: 1

    Haven't been around much, I take it?

    Developing apps to use in the wild means that the end-users will find all sorts of ways to do the wrong thing. These are not things you can always test for before a release (beta, rc, whatever), unless you do double-blind usability using people who've never used your software.

    I've come to expect that when I release a new version of whatever or add/change a feature, I will get immediate feedback from the field because someone will add a new URL to a list that passes my validation as a valid address but duplicates an existing URL, (e.g., example.com vs. example.com/ ), causing all amounts of havoc.

    Humans are incredible at learning the most farked up procedures by rote. Until they do, however, they are like a blind beggar in an abandoned mine -- always taking the wrong turn and falling down a shaft.

    --
    Yeah, right.
    1. Re:Er, no by praseodym · · Score: 1

      There have been several beta releases for Internet Explorer 7 and 8. Still no need for nightly builds: if it's not release quality, why publish it at all?

      In open source projects, nightly builds are mostly a service for developers/testers as well. And since everybody can help improve the code, having more people test can certainly be beneficial.