When you put together a complete test suite, it's possible that both browsers score around the same -- just saying..
I understand what you're trying to get at, but it's simply not correct. Take DOM2 support for example. IE8 is missing the ENTIRE Events section of the standard. In fact, most of DOM2 is MIA. That's a rather massive hole right there. And if you go through the list of items I posted above, you can find how many of the bugs they documented went unfixed in IE8.
You know the most frustrating part about the lack of DOM2 Events support? Microsoft closed the bug on DOM 2 Events with "Closed (By Design)". BY DESIGN?!?! What the--?
Worse yet, Microsoft ventured into HTML5 territory with IE8 but decided to pay it little more than lip service. The comments I've seen on the WHATWG list have them pushing proprietary extensions that would already be covered if they'd just implement the entire part of that spec! (e.g. They implement local storage, then attempt to include a transaction model for it. All while ignoring the part of the storage spec for local, transactional database storage.) Somehow Microsoft is attempting to implement various events features from HTML5 without supporting DOM2 Events. How in the world can they suggest that such broken implementations would even be close to the spec if their event system is wrong? (Closed "by design" remember!)
Interestingly, Microsoft has also seen fit to ignore the most implemented part of the HTML5 standard: The CANVAS tag. Internet Explorer thus remains the only web browser with no Canvas support.
These features that Microsoft is ignoring are the very foundations of modern web browsers. Without them, web developers have to work on a variety of workarounds to make their sites work with IE. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is the name of the game.
That's a little strong, to say the least. It works, it's fast, it's feature rich, and it's secure.
I posted a link above so that you could understand how BROKEN IE is. Why don't you take a tour and see how broken it is? Or more to the point, take a look at my sig. The game in it is a real-world application that is written to the standards. With no special work, the game worked in Opera, FireFox, Chrome, and Safari. If I had another standards compliant browser to throw at it, I'm sure it would work as well.
Yet nearly every feature it needs to operate is not supported by any version of Internet Explorer. No canvas, no DOM 2 Events, no Opacity (also "Closed (By Design)"), NUTH-ING. It simply will not operate in IE8.
I have the technology to patch IE8 at runtime. A Java Applet with a LiveConnect interface, a wrapper around Microsoft's event system, conditional use of opacity, it could all be made to work. But the God's honest truth is that I simply don't want to. Microsoft's piss-poor attitude toward developers has finally caught up with them. From the day I saw their blasted "closed by design" bug, I decided that it's simply not worth investing the effort in Microsoft any longer. Microsoft refuses to invest in their customers, so they can burn for all I care.
Apologies if I'm getting a bit melodramatic, but your comment about IE8 being "feature rich" is a bit of a trigger for me. As a web developer I have patiently worked around IE for the better part of a decade. I figured that support for the (OVER!) decade-old W3C standards would eventually arrive in future IE versions. But first Microsoft ignored pleas in their IE7 development. That was somewhat ok. They were just getting started again. IE8 was supposed to be the big standards fix'em up. Microsoft promised the development community upside down and backwards that IE8 would be the most standards compliant browser yet. In fact, they advertise I
Mod this up to +11. It's insane how much material has to be archived illegally to keep it intact. Case in point: When Legacy Engineering developed the Atari Flashback 2 for the modern Atari, they had to pull all the ROMs, documents, schematics, and everything else from their own archives. Atari had absolutely none of it.
Similarly, all kinds of software is being lost due to the draconian copyright laws. In fact, two of the titles I remember from my childhood (a Q-Bert ripoff with ice cubes and a lunar lander clone that gained you fuel from answering math problems) are, as far as I can tell, simply lost to history. No one has even documented their existence, much less made a backup for posterity!
Unfortunately, the problem is only getting worse. Movies, television, software, digital texts, and other forms of useful information and cultural entertainment are being lost to time permanently. All because these items fall out of circulation and copyright law prevents enough copies from being kept around to prevent their untimely demise.
That being said, I do realize that not everything can be kept. Hell, I know more than enough historians wish we had even simple documents like tax assessments and census results from the ancient world. Even seemingly stupid stuff like that can be incredibly useful. Never the less, some of this information is simply going to be lost in time. But let's at least make an effort to preserve the works that define our history and culture. You never know. 2000 years from now our descendants may want to piece together what happened to us.;-)
Is a comparison between a relatively old beta build of IE 8 and the most recent nightly build of WebKit / Opera really fair?
1. Beta 1 got a 17/100. The RC1 released TODAY got a 20/100.
2. Opera/Safari nightlies did it in March. You can download a pre-release of the Opera version here and test it for yourself.
3. The ACID tests focus on features that are useful in the marketplace, but have not been fully implemented. In result, attaining ACID compliance is a GOOD thing.
4. IE8 is BROKEN. Any web developer will hit a wall with its standards support in minutes. It is an indefensible piece of garbage considering where the market is today.
Thanks for pointing that out! I didn't have the nightly figures for Firefox, so I had to go with the figures I had on hand. Comparing the upcoming releases of these browsers is (IMHO) very fair considering that they will probably be out at the same time as IE8.
Even if we put that aside, it's worth mentioning that IE8 scores lower than any competing browser did at the time the ACID3 test was introduced. As I recall, not a single browser (other than IE) fell below 40 in the initial ACID3 results. Which is pretty good when you consider that the ACID tests are designed to target features that are under-represented in the marketplace.
No? What's that? Microsoft closed out the bugs as "works as intended?" Fail.
Something to credit Microsoft for
In case it's not clear, I have a firey hatred for IE8. Not so much the product itself, but what it represents. What it represents is a flagpole in the ground stating, "We're going to stand in the way of progress for our own selfish reasons".
While I can understand that Microsoft feels that the market is slipping from their grasp, I cannot support their methods of attempting to compete. Which is to say that they are using their power to prevent competition rather than building a superior product. As Joel pointed out in his excellent article on the Windows API being lost:
Which means, suddenly, Microsoft's [Windows] API doesn't matter so much. Web applications don't require Windows.
It's not that Microsoft didn't notice this was happening. Of course they did, and when the implications became clear, they slammed on the brakes. Promising new technologies like HTAs and DHTML were stopped in their tracks. The Internet Explorer team seems to have disappeared; they have been completely missing in action for several years. There's no way Microsoft is going to allow DHTML to get any better than it already is: it's just too dangerous to their core business, the rich client. The big meme at Microsoft these days is: "Microsoft is betting the company on the rich client." You'll see that somewhere in every slide presentation about Longhorn. Joe Beda, from the Avalon team, says that "Avalon, and Longhorn in general, is Microsoft's stake in the ground, saying that we believe power on your desktop, locally sitting there doing cool stuff, is here to stay. We're investing on the desktop, we think it's a good place to be, and we hope we're going to start a wave of excitement..."
If you truly want to understand what is wrong with this browser, take some time and go through these examples:
Those only scratch the surface of what is really wrong with IE and Microsoft's stance on improving their web browser. For further reference, RC1 of IE8 gets a 20/100 on ACID3. This compares poorly to FireFox3's 56-59/100, Webkit nightly's 100/100, and Opera dev version's 100/100(!).
Developers need to band together and stop hacking our sites for IE. Users who wish to use IE should either be directed toward download links for one of the many alternatives, or forced to deal with a degraded view of the site with a polite comment to upgrade. And by degraded, I mean "it works, but looks awful". If that right there doesn't sell users on getting an alternative browser, I don't know what will.
(Yes, I am aware that many businesses can't take the hit. But we have to start somewhere. And that somewhere can easily be everything from your personal site to your new venture that's betting on early adopters of advanced web technology. IE's market share is already plummeting. If we can get enough momentum, we can near-eliminate this unsightly browser from the web. Remember Netscape 4's inability to keep up? This is the exact same situation all over again, except this time the solution is not a total mono-culture.)
God, is it any wonder why Digg is kicking Slashdot's butt?!
I've spent quite a bit of time on Digg, and I can tell you that Digg is not a technology site. It's a social networking site where users share the latest and greatest information in whatever area suites their fancy. As Slashdot's tagline "News for Nerds" suggests, Slashdot is for nerds. Midnight Commander news is certainly nerdy and therefore on topic.
Furthermore, the "Stuff that matters" part is intended to assure that Slashdot news won't be quite a banal as Digg's news. Digg users may care that user X just managed to get a four day old story to "pop", but the world outside of Digg's user-networks really doesn't care.
So with all respect intended, your complaints are duly noted and ignored. Now get off my lawn, ya' darn kids!
It seems to me that to be more than traniently effective you still need tansfer the heat to something with greater surface area. And if the attached heatsink fins have the same surface area as before, what has been accomplished?
Usually when a chip is running, only certain parts receive heavy use. These parts of the chip are going to be dumping more heat than the parts of the chip that are lying idle. In result, the chips has a few hotspots that are cooking your most important circuitry.
These mini-refrigerators will remove these hot spots by dispersing heat to areas that are currently underutilized. This should give the chip a more even operating temp and thus provide a greater surface area with which to disperse heat in general. The end result is that chips become more reliable and can be run at higher wattages without melting a hole through your chip. Higher wattages means that they can be clocked higher without error and thus get more work done in less time.
I don't understand all the hubbub either. So MS bundles a browser with their operating system... so what?
The "so what" is that Microsoft has intentionally stopped competing in an attempt to derail the industry. IE7 shipped without a variety of 10 year old standards that Microsoft themselves helped write. IE8 will be released soon with the exact same choices made. About all that has improved is a bit of support for CSS.
Any other company would immediately lose their market share for pulling such a stunt. But in Microsoft's case, their browser is forced upon millions of users who are unaware that alternatives exist. In result, the market is unable to use competition as a balancing force.
IMHO, what the EU (and probably the US antitrust division) should do is force Microsoft to remove the IE executable and require OEMs to ship an alternative browser (from an EU/US approved list of competitors) until such a time as IE sufficiently meets the W3C standards to compete. (To be decided upon by the antitrust commission.) Note that I am not suggesting that Microsoft be forced to meet the newer HTML5 standard that other browsers are already participating in. Merely the standards that Microsoft committed to, then failed to follow through on.
Alternatively, the antitrust commission could force the dissolution of Internet Explorer into a separate company with a new executive team from outside of Microsoft and sufficient initial funding. That company could license the Internet Explorer product back to Microsoft for inclusion into the core of Windows, but not allowed to actually show an IE icon without an OEM deal. Microsoft themselves would be restricted from developing an HTML rendering engine for the next 10 years.
This would force this new company to compete in the open market. Without the coffers of Microsoft-proper to keep the IE company afloat, I'm sure that it would only be a short while before Microsoft realizes that it would be cheaper to bundle an alternative rendering engine. Meanwhile, the IE company is going to have to work hard on standards, competitive features, and cross-platform support to convince the market that they are worth using.
It seems to me that the core of your argument is that you don't like using what you like to call "dirty hacks" in Javascript. Which I'm afraid I cannot understand. While I can understand wanting to use the language in a standardized fashion to prevent unmaintainable spaghetti code, the methods I mentioned are how the language was designed to be used. The patterns that you use in Javascript obviously are not analogous to any other language, but that's because Javascript itself is a very unique language.
I'll grant that the language will happily allow you to slice your own arm off* if you're not careful with it. But educating programmers on the best practices can help solve that in much the same way that best practices in Java helped cure programmers of writing highly procedural code, abusing exceptions for information that should be checked, using reflection to accomplish functional code, and other practices that just weren't good for that language.
Who in his right mind would sell a direclt VTBL manipulation in C++ as a feature
Steve Russel? The concept of functions as data elements is a very powerful concept that has its roots in Lambda Calculus. C++ virtual functions are a poor man's functional solution at best. Javascript, LISP, and other functional languages use functions are true data items. Javascript has seen fit to turn this into a complete object system. Such a system is known as Duck Typing.
Who in his right mind would sell a map hack in Modula as a feature to reach namespacing but yet exactly that happens here!
I'm trying very hard to wrap my head around this argument, but I'm not reaching much success. I presume you're talking about the dynamic spaces hack? Modula is in a whole other class of languages. (Imperative languages at that.) Doing anything functional in Modula is obviously a hack. But in Javascript, it's how the language is designed to get things done.
Functional development works in Javascript, and it works really well. If you can just get past your prejudices from doing years of imperative development, you'll see that there's nothing really wrong with Javascript's approach. It's just different. And trust me. I found it just as hard a pill to swallow at first.;-)
* Like a lightsaber. Very powerful yet very dangerous weapons. They have no counterweight to protect the bearer!;-)
I really can't believe you so casually dismiss lack of IE support.
As I said, it is easily fixable. I'm just on a mission to make sure that it dies rather than being supported. If someone wants to pay me to create something with IE support, I most likely will. But even then I work hard to ensure standards compliance to assist in phasing out IE. IE's market share has been dropping like a rock as of the last year, and I intend to see that it gets there.
If that shocks you, then I'm sorry. IE is a piece of crap pushed on to the market by a company that is using it to advertise how much they hate their users. So I have little sympathy for them. And what I have found is that most users still using IE have an alternative browser installed on their computer and only use IE out of habit. In result, I've received very little pushback for "firing" IE users. In fact, most seem to think it's rather funny.
I think you've just made my point for me on why Flash is the better way to go if you're actually in the business as a business.
And you're completely ignoring my point about non-desktop computing devices. Which is very much the topic at hand.
It's only within the last year that JS has started to gain some serious development traction.
Clarification: It's only within the last year that JS has started to gain traction as a serious platform for application development. In result, many of the "cool" demos are experiments that push the envelope rather than efforts to create something useful.
IE is currently the only browser without Canvas support. There is a solid solution using Java applets for emulation. (Current excanvas solution uses VML which isn't fast enough.) The *problem* is that IE is not worth supporting. The longer developers bend over backwards for it, the longer it's going to hang around. That's why my game redirects you to a nice "get a real browser" page rather than using the Applet I developed for high performance Canvas emulation. I just can't make myself support that POS any longer. Especially with Microsoft's active attempts to ignore the standards in IE8. (Did you know that DOM2 Events support was closed out as "works as intended"?)
I included a few links that use highly experimental features that the WHATWG recently added to the specs. However, it's important to understand that these are not commercial apps. For the most part, the links I gave you are guys who pushing the envelope with their experiments. It's only within the last year that JS has started to gain some serious development traction.
And there will always be far less to explain to your boss about why your app doesn't work on XYZ browser version Q because of it's implementation of feature A isn't... blah blah blah, you get the point.
Thankfully, that's not really an issue any longer. Save for cutting edge experimental features (NOT required by any stretch of the imagination), browsers have become highly compatible with each other. There is no need to add special hacks any longer. Unless you're using IE, which is why (IMHO) its decline will accelerate over the next year as webapps continue to grow in sophistication.
Also, it's important to remember the topic we're discussing here. For development targeting the iPhone, JS and Flash are evenly matched. Or at least they would be if the iPhone had Flash. Same with the Wii. The Wii has Flash, but it's so outdated that Javascript is the best way forward. With more and more non-desktop devices having ports of browsers, but no Flash, the tables are already turning. That is what will help drive Javascript application adoption forward and place you in the position of explaining to your boss why you can't use Flex for projects in the future. The problem will only get worse as Adobe focuses on high-powered desktops while the market looks toward netbooks, smartphones, and game consoles.
I have seen 3D experiments that do environment mapping like you showed, but I'm afraid I don't have them handy. Of course, I doubt either Papervision 3D or a Javascript 3D engine would work very well on the iPhone. If the Canvas3D spec gets finalized, then we might end up with direct access to the 3D hardware which *would* make it possible to run 3D on such devices. (I've been asking for that on the Wii for some time. Especially since the fill rate in the browser is awful.)
Don't let my little game fool you. I'm limited to the technical capabilities of a much less powerful machine than your average desktop. (i.e. The Nintendo Wii) Since I couldn't push as many pixels on that platform, I threw in a few cinematic effects to add some pizazz. I can and have made that game run so fast on the desktop so as to be unplayable. Thus what you see is intentional limiting to keep a game at a reasonable speed. Browsers are capable of a LOT more these days.
It's not so much about what you CAN do in Javascript/DHTML, but how much you have to invest to make certain things a reality. I've been coding in Flex for the last year and I cannot imagine how much work I'd have to go through to reproduce some of the applications I've built in Javascript/DHTML, much less to have it work consistently on a variety of operating systems.
It's really not that hard once you get the hang of it. The big difference I think is that it's not a very mature market yet. But it is growing and FAST. I give it a year, maybe two before JS applications start displacing Flash.
Forget the imagination, how about a little sense? Most radioactive materials are too heavy to remain airborne. They will fall before they can do damage, even if ground up. Most targets would not be used for farming, so the ground assault from the materials won't be effective. And even if you target farming, the government will simply evacuate the land and pull of a layer of topsoil. Furthermore, the grinding process poses a greater risk to the person grinding than to the area intended for dispersal.
The experts have been over dirty bombs upside down and backwards. Their conclusion is the same conclusion that occurs to anyone with even a modicum of nuclear knowledge: Dirty bombs don't work.
Likely because Java doesn't ever change the behavior of a library, even if it's technically buggy.
Somewhat correct. The key issue to keep in mind is that the spec is usually vetted to the point where the specification is correct. Sun then uses a test kit to ensure that VMs meet the specification. Sometimes an error is not caught and the implementation has to be updated. However, these situations are few and far between. They rarely affect code deployed using the APIs. (e.g. I once had an executable JAR file with a manifest that didn't meet the standard. My fault, but the JVM didn't call me on it. I had to fix it when Sun made their JVM more restrictive.)
Oh, and anecdote is not evidence.
Good. Because your anecdote isn't even valid. LTPA authentication is an IBM proprietary extension. From the sound of that link, it appears that IBM broke the LTPA functionality he was using. Which is one of my major gripes with IBM. They first convince people to use garbage that isn't in the spec, then they stop supporting it or change the way they support it in future versions.
Where did I say radical changes?
You didn't. I did. ASP.NET 2.0 was a radical change to ASP.NET. That's why users are forced to convert or continue running 1.1.
It might also be interesting to you that even major car companies typically have problems with the first (or sometimes even second year) model cars. That doesn't mean the car company has "a problem with their engineering." It means that without limitless resources to test the design, there are bound to be mistakes.
Bad analogy. Most car flaws are implementation problems, not design flaws in the underlying architecture. Usually the implementation issues are resolved in the next model year without a significant change to the vehicle platform. In fact, cars are far more evolutionary than most people realize. Revolutions in vehicle design are few and far between.
I just said changes that were great improvements.
Great improvements can usually be done without breaking old code. For some reason Microsoft decided that wasn't an option.
Of course, as DLL hell teaches us, sometimes code relies on the buggy behavior, and fixing it breaks applications.
No, DLL Hell teaches us that global libraries are BAD. Because applications can rely on buggy behavior or because experimental libraries need to make radical changes, it's better that applications be able to link against libraries locally rather than having everything global.
Sorry, I disagree. If your application IS behaving properly on 1.1, why add risk by trying to run it on 2.0? And seriously, who cares? Extra assemblies take up insignificant amounts of disk spaces.
Ignoring the pain and anguish caused during the transition period when IIS didn't support running both, then sort of did, and now mostly does, there's also the issue of obsolescence. Microsoft has basically made a decision for you that your code is now obsolete. At some point it will become inconvenient for Microsoft to continue supporting you and you will be left without an upgrade path. Certain features are already unavailable to users of the 1.x series of ASP.NET.
J2EE OTOH adds features into the same framework. I remember when JSPs were first implemented. It was a snap to use JSPs to make my next version of an application more sophisticated with less work.
DLL hell doesn't exist on the.Net framework.. which is my point. SxS is thier answer to that problem..
SxS is a patch (not a solution!) to a core design problem with Windows. Microsoft dropped support in ASP.NET 2.0.
May I point out what I said in another post in this thread.
Let's be intellectually honest for a moment. Apple's actions are neither sinister or altruistic. They are simply good business. While my answer of "Flash competes" is the distilled answer, there is more to the story than that.
Effectively you are attempting to commit me to a black and white answer that I did not commit to. For every answer there are many shades of gray to go with it. It is silly to assume that just because someone does X it automatically means Z even if Y can be cooperative with X.
In this particular case, Apple's iTunes store is represented by Pandora. That is assured. Why does Apple need to make bad press for themselves by bringing the hammer down on Pandora for offering links to alternative stores? That's not in their terms of service, nor is it a condition they advertise anywhere. Clearly taking that tack would only cause more trouble for Apple than they would save.
However, Apple is easily in the position to say, "Net radio would be too heavyweight for 3G networks. No net radio apps." Which is a card they could have played when Net Radio apps were first submitted. Yet since Pandora supports Net Radio as a method of encouraging electronic purchases (of which iTunes has a distinct advantage) it was in their interest to allow such applications.
This is what Pandora already does. So this can't be why Apple would be not allowing flash.
My comment was more directed toward video content rather than audio content. An hour long television show is easily 300MB of data. That's a lot to send over 3G and an insane amount to send over EDGE. Audio is certainly a concern, but it's obvious that Apple and AT&T feel that the stream is sufficiently thin enough to stream over those connections. So *shrug*. Given the recent announcement that iTunes music will be available over 3G, it may be related to the 3G upgrades. Possibly, Apple was even watching Pandora to see if it would cause harm to the networks. If it did, they could have locked out the app and asked everyone to upgrade to a WiFi only version.
Nonsense. Offering consumers options makes them happy. Apple knows that tight integration with their product ensures that a large number of them will use their store. It does not mean that they have to lock out every possible competitor in an attempt to create themselves anti-trust issues. Especially when the competitor's music doesn't operate on the very music device the user is surfing with.
In effect, Apple is competing in the market. They use their control not to lock out potential competitors, but rather to ensure that their competitors can't lock them out of their own channels.
Yes I know H.264 is not OSS, but compared to Flash or Silverlight it is certainly more accessible.
Flash supports H.264 codecs. So in that respect, it actually works with Apple's designs for multimedia. Flash is also a pseudo-open platform, making it reasonably appealing to implement on any platform. Of course, the only reason why anyone feels it's a must-have is because of the multimedia capabilities. e.g. If you look at the Wii, the overriding purpose of Flash support on the Internet Channel was Youtube support. The staff have said as much and have ignored other sites with Flash players that don't work.
Apple sidestepped that issue by working out a deal with Youtube to provide direct MP4 access to videos. That allows the iPhone to have Youtube support (which doesn't compete with their offerings) without supporting the Flash player. Jobs also knew he could sell it because he talked Youtube into giving them higher quality videos. Higher quality provided justification for the path taken by Apple.
I think it is a little less sinister than you think.
Let's be intellectually honest for a moment. Apple's actions are neither sinister or altruistic. They are simply good business. While my answer of "Flash competes" is the distilled answer, there is more to the story than that. Take Youtube as an example. Apple truly is providing a better experience with a custom application that fits the phone rather than allowing users to use an interface that is designed for desktop PCs. This devalues the Flash player and raises questions as to whether or not it's needed. If you dig further into that line of logic, you find that Flash enables interfaces that go against the slick interface of the phone. Apple has some control over HTML rendering, but practically none over Flash rendering. Thus another ding against the platform. Add it all up and Apple's decisions start to make a lot of sense.
However, would Apple kick Adobe out on their can if they approached Apple with a proposition for supporting Flash? Probably not. Again, it comes down to good business. If Adobe can make an offer that appeals to Apple, it may overcome the aspects that devalue the platform to them. The only catch is that Apple doesn't need Adobe as much as Adobe needs Apple to maintain their multimedia monopoly on the web. So Adobe will be in the unenviable position of having to make the most compromise to reach an agreement.
Same with Sun. If Sun can reach an agreement on Java that appeal to Apple, Apple may change their tune. But as it stands today, Apple has ensured that they don't need anyone else's support. Especially if it causes aspects of the platform to leave their control. Given the ease with which an application could overwhelm a cellular network, control is something that Apple needs in this situation. It's just good business.
As an app platform, Flash can't do anything that Javascript/DHTML can't. (See my sig for an example.) Except for multimedia.
The apps in the appstore are there because the appstore provides a useful distribution channel to get apps in front of users. i.e. a "push" model. Apps on the Internet are much harder to find and require active searching by the user. i.e. the "pull" model
If Apple sees any threat from Flash, it is people being able to develop & distribute Apps out of Apple's control.
Getting warmer. If Apple sees any threat from Flash, it's in providing a distribution system for multimedia that is out of Apple's control. Remember, Apple still makes a lot of money off the iTunes Music and TV stores. They don't want to have competition from the likes of Hulu.com or NetRadio.com. Especially if users get the bright idea of streaming this data over a cell network. (ugh)
The technology that worries Apple for apps is Java. Though I have to concede that J2ME apps tend to be craptastic. They're simply underpowered for a device as sophisticated as the iPhone.
It's always trojans, worms or adware and has been for several years.
A worm differs from a virus only in so much that it doesn't need to copy itself into a system program. For all intents and purposes however, the difference between the two terms is antiquated.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what you're trying to get at, but it's simply not correct. Take DOM2 support for example. IE8 is missing the ENTIRE Events section of the standard. In fact, most of DOM2 is MIA. That's a rather massive hole right there. And if you go through the list of items I posted above, you can find how many of the bugs they documented went unfixed in IE8.
You know the most frustrating part about the lack of DOM2 Events support? Microsoft closed the bug on DOM 2 Events with "Closed (By Design)". BY DESIGN?!?! What the--?
Worse yet, Microsoft ventured into HTML5 territory with IE8 but decided to pay it little more than lip service. The comments I've seen on the WHATWG list have them pushing proprietary extensions that would already be covered if they'd just implement the entire part of that spec! (e.g. They implement local storage, then attempt to include a transaction model for it. All while ignoring the part of the storage spec for local, transactional database storage.) Somehow Microsoft is attempting to implement various events features from HTML5 without supporting DOM2 Events. How in the world can they suggest that such broken implementations would even be close to the spec if their event system is wrong? (Closed "by design" remember!)
Interestingly, Microsoft has also seen fit to ignore the most implemented part of the HTML5 standard: The CANVAS tag. Internet Explorer thus remains the only web browser with no Canvas support.
These features that Microsoft is ignoring are the very foundations of modern web browsers. Without them, web developers have to work on a variety of workarounds to make their sites work with IE. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is the name of the game.
I posted a link above so that you could understand how BROKEN IE is. Why don't you take a tour and see how broken it is? Or more to the point, take a look at my sig. The game in it is a real-world application that is written to the standards. With no special work, the game worked in Opera, FireFox, Chrome, and Safari. If I had another standards compliant browser to throw at it, I'm sure it would work as well.
Yet nearly every feature it needs to operate is not supported by any version of Internet Explorer. No canvas, no DOM 2 Events, no Opacity (also "Closed (By Design)"), NUTH-ING. It simply will not operate in IE8.
I have the technology to patch IE8 at runtime. A Java Applet with a LiveConnect interface, a wrapper around Microsoft's event system, conditional use of opacity, it could all be made to work. But the God's honest truth is that I simply don't want to. Microsoft's piss-poor attitude toward developers has finally caught up with them. From the day I saw their blasted "closed by design" bug, I decided that it's simply not worth investing the effort in Microsoft any longer. Microsoft refuses to invest in their customers, so they can burn for all I care.
Apologies if I'm getting a bit melodramatic, but your comment about IE8 being "feature rich" is a bit of a trigger for me. As a web developer I have patiently worked around IE for the better part of a decade. I figured that support for the (OVER!) decade-old W3C standards would eventually arrive in future IE versions. But first Microsoft ignored pleas in their IE7 development. That was somewhat ok. They were just getting started again. IE8 was supposed to be the big standards fix'em up. Microsoft promised the development community upside down and backwards that IE8 would be the most standards compliant browser yet. In fact, they advertise I
Mod this up to +11. It's insane how much material has to be archived illegally to keep it intact. Case in point: When Legacy Engineering developed the Atari Flashback 2 for the modern Atari, they had to pull all the ROMs, documents, schematics, and everything else from their own archives. Atari had absolutely none of it.
Similarly, all kinds of software is being lost due to the draconian copyright laws. In fact, two of the titles I remember from my childhood (a Q-Bert ripoff with ice cubes and a lunar lander clone that gained you fuel from answering math problems) are, as far as I can tell, simply lost to history. No one has even documented their existence, much less made a backup for posterity!
Unfortunately, the problem is only getting worse. Movies, television, software, digital texts, and other forms of useful information and cultural entertainment are being lost to time permanently. All because these items fall out of circulation and copyright law prevents enough copies from being kept around to prevent their untimely demise.
That being said, I do realize that not everything can be kept. Hell, I know more than enough historians wish we had even simple documents like tax assessments and census results from the ancient world. Even seemingly stupid stuff like that can be incredibly useful. Never the less, some of this information is simply going to be lost in time. But let's at least make an effort to preserve the works that define our history and culture. You never know. 2000 years from now our descendants may want to piece together what happened to us. ;-)
1. Beta 1 got a 17/100. The RC1 released TODAY got a 20/100.
2. Opera/Safari nightlies did it in March. You can download a pre-release of the Opera version here and test it for yourself.
3. The ACID tests focus on features that are useful in the marketplace, but have not been fully implemented. In result, attaining ACID compliance is a GOOD thing.
4. IE8 is BROKEN. Any web developer will hit a wall with its standards support in minutes. It is an indefensible piece of garbage considering where the market is today.
Thanks for pointing that out! I didn't have the nightly figures for Firefox, so I had to go with the figures I had on hand. Comparing the upcoming releases of these browsers is (IMHO) very fair considering that they will probably be out at the same time as IE8.
Even if we put that aside, it's worth mentioning that IE8 scores lower than any competing browser did at the time the ACID3 test was introduced. As I recall, not a single browser (other than IE) fell below 40 in the initial ACID3 results. Which is pretty good when you consider that the ACID tests are designed to target features that are under-represented in the marketplace.
No? What's that? Microsoft closed out the bugs as "works as intended?" Fail.
In case it's not clear, I have a firey hatred for IE8. Not so much the product itself, but what it represents. What it represents is a flagpole in the ground stating, "We're going to stand in the way of progress for our own selfish reasons".
While I can understand that Microsoft feels that the market is slipping from their grasp, I cannot support their methods of attempting to compete. Which is to say that they are using their power to prevent competition rather than building a superior product. As Joel pointed out in his excellent article on the Windows API being lost:
If you truly want to understand what is wrong with this browser, take some time and go through these examples:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/wrongWithIE/
Those only scratch the surface of what is really wrong with IE and Microsoft's stance on improving their web browser. For further reference, RC1 of IE8 gets a 20/100 on ACID3. This compares poorly to FireFox3's 56-59/100, Webkit nightly's 100/100, and Opera dev version's 100/100(!).
Developers need to band together and stop hacking our sites for IE. Users who wish to use IE should either be directed toward download links for one of the many alternatives, or forced to deal with a degraded view of the site with a polite comment to upgrade. And by degraded, I mean "it works, but looks awful". If that right there doesn't sell users on getting an alternative browser, I don't know what will.
(Yes, I am aware that many businesses can't take the hit. But we have to start somewhere. And that somewhere can easily be everything from your personal site to your new venture that's betting on early adopters of advanced web technology. IE's market share is already plummeting. If we can get enough momentum, we can near-eliminate this unsightly browser from the web. Remember Netscape 4's inability to keep up? This is the exact same situation all over again, except this time the solution is not a total mono-culture.)
I've spent quite a bit of time on Digg, and I can tell you that Digg is not a technology site. It's a social networking site where users share the latest and greatest information in whatever area suites their fancy. As Slashdot's tagline "News for Nerds" suggests, Slashdot is for nerds. Midnight Commander news is certainly nerdy and therefore on topic.
Furthermore, the "Stuff that matters" part is intended to assure that Slashdot news won't be quite a banal as Digg's news. Digg users may care that user X just managed to get a four day old story to "pop", but the world outside of Digg's user-networks really doesn't care.
So with all respect intended, your complaints are duly noted and ignored. Now get off my lawn, ya' darn kids!
Usually when a chip is running, only certain parts receive heavy use. These parts of the chip are going to be dumping more heat than the parts of the chip that are lying idle. In result, the chips has a few hotspots that are cooking your most important circuitry.
These mini-refrigerators will remove these hot spots by dispersing heat to areas that are currently underutilized. This should give the chip a more even operating temp and thus provide a greater surface area with which to disperse heat in general. The end result is that chips become more reliable and can be run at higher wattages without melting a hole through your chip. Higher wattages means that they can be clocked higher without error and thus get more work done in less time.
The "so what" is that Microsoft has intentionally stopped competing in an attempt to derail the industry. IE7 shipped without a variety of 10 year old standards that Microsoft themselves helped write. IE8 will be released soon with the exact same choices made. About all that has improved is a bit of support for CSS.
Any other company would immediately lose their market share for pulling such a stunt. But in Microsoft's case, their browser is forced upon millions of users who are unaware that alternatives exist. In result, the market is unable to use competition as a balancing force.
IMHO, what the EU (and probably the US antitrust division) should do is force Microsoft to remove the IE executable and require OEMs to ship an alternative browser (from an EU/US approved list of competitors) until such a time as IE sufficiently meets the W3C standards to compete. (To be decided upon by the antitrust commission.) Note that I am not suggesting that Microsoft be forced to meet the newer HTML5 standard that other browsers are already participating in. Merely the standards that Microsoft committed to, then failed to follow through on.
Alternatively, the antitrust commission could force the dissolution of Internet Explorer into a separate company with a new executive team from outside of Microsoft and sufficient initial funding. That company could license the Internet Explorer product back to Microsoft for inclusion into the core of Windows, but not allowed to actually show an IE icon without an OEM deal. Microsoft themselves would be restricted from developing an HTML rendering engine for the next 10 years.
This would force this new company to compete in the open market. Without the coffers of Microsoft-proper to keep the IE company afloat, I'm sure that it would only be a short while before Microsoft realizes that it would be cheaper to bundle an alternative rendering engine. Meanwhile, the IE company is going to have to work hard on standards, competitive features, and cross-platform support to convince the market that they are worth using.
It seems to me that the core of your argument is that you don't like using what you like to call "dirty hacks" in Javascript. Which I'm afraid I cannot understand. While I can understand wanting to use the language in a standardized fashion to prevent unmaintainable spaghetti code, the methods I mentioned are how the language was designed to be used. The patterns that you use in Javascript obviously are not analogous to any other language, but that's because Javascript itself is a very unique language.
I'll grant that the language will happily allow you to slice your own arm off* if you're not careful with it. But educating programmers on the best practices can help solve that in much the same way that best practices in Java helped cure programmers of writing highly procedural code, abusing exceptions for information that should be checked, using reflection to accomplish functional code, and other practices that just weren't good for that language.
Steve Russel? The concept of functions as data elements is a very powerful concept that has its roots in Lambda Calculus. C++ virtual functions are a poor man's functional solution at best. Javascript, LISP, and other functional languages use functions are true data items. Javascript has seen fit to turn this into a complete object system. Such a system is known as Duck Typing.
I'm trying very hard to wrap my head around this argument, but I'm not reaching much success. I presume you're talking about the dynamic spaces hack? Modula is in a whole other class of languages. (Imperative languages at that.) Doing anything functional in Modula is obviously a hack. But in Javascript, it's how the language is designed to get things done.
Functional development works in Javascript, and it works really well. If you can just get past your prejudices from doing years of imperative development, you'll see that there's nothing really wrong with Javascript's approach. It's just different. And trust me. I found it just as hard a pill to swallow at first. ;-)
* Like a lightsaber. Very powerful yet very dangerous weapons. They have no counterweight to protect the bearer! ;-)
As I said, it is easily fixable. I'm just on a mission to make sure that it dies rather than being supported. If someone wants to pay me to create something with IE support, I most likely will. But even then I work hard to ensure standards compliance to assist in phasing out IE. IE's market share has been dropping like a rock as of the last year, and I intend to see that it gets there.
If that shocks you, then I'm sorry. IE is a piece of crap pushed on to the market by a company that is using it to advertise how much they hate their users. So I have little sympathy for them. And what I have found is that most users still using IE have an alternative browser installed on their computer and only use IE out of habit. In result, I've received very little pushback for "firing" IE users. In fact, most seem to think it's rather funny.
And you're completely ignoring my point about non-desktop computing devices. Which is very much the topic at hand.
Clarification: It's only within the last year that JS has started to gain traction as a serious platform for application development. In result, many of the "cool" demos are experiments that push the envelope rather than efforts to create something useful.
IE is currently the only browser without Canvas support. There is a solid solution using Java applets for emulation. (Current excanvas solution uses VML which isn't fast enough.) The *problem* is that IE is not worth supporting. The longer developers bend over backwards for it, the longer it's going to hang around. That's why my game redirects you to a nice "get a real browser" page rather than using the Applet I developed for high performance Canvas emulation. I just can't make myself support that POS any longer. Especially with Microsoft's active attempts to ignore the standards in IE8. (Did you know that DOM2 Events support was closed out as "works as intended"?)
I included a few links that use highly experimental features that the WHATWG recently added to the specs. However, it's important to understand that these are not commercial apps. For the most part, the links I gave you are guys who pushing the envelope with their experiments. It's only within the last year that JS has started to gain some serious development traction.
Thankfully, that's not really an issue any longer. Save for cutting edge experimental features (NOT required by any stretch of the imagination), browsers have become highly compatible with each other. There is no need to add special hacks any longer. Unless you're using IE, which is why (IMHO) its decline will accelerate over the next year as webapps continue to grow in sophistication.
Also, it's important to remember the topic we're discussing here. For development targeting the iPhone, JS and Flash are evenly matched. Or at least they would be if the iPhone had Flash. Same with the Wii. The Wii has Flash, but it's so outdated that Javascript is the best way forward. With more and more non-desktop devices having ports of browsers, but no Flash, the tables are already turning. That is what will help drive Javascript application adoption forward and place you in the position of explaining to your boss why you can't use Flex for projects in the future. The problem will only get worse as Adobe focuses on high-powered desktops while the market looks toward netbooks, smartphones, and game consoles.
That? That's easy.
http://lbi.lostboys.nl/blog/artikelen/canvas-in-full-3d/
http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/wolf/
http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/canvas3dtexture_0.2/
http://blog.nihilogic.dk/2008/06/3d-javascript-chess-mouse-support.html
http://www.kaarellumi.com/asylum/html/dyn10.htm
http://acko.net/files/projective/index.html
http://wiioperasdk.com/
I have seen 3D experiments that do environment mapping like you showed, but I'm afraid I don't have them handy. Of course, I doubt either Papervision 3D or a Javascript 3D engine would work very well on the iPhone. If the Canvas3D spec gets finalized, then we might end up with direct access to the 3D hardware which *would* make it possible to run 3D on such devices. (I've been asking for that on the Wii for some time. Especially since the fill rate in the browser is awful.)
Don't let my little game fool you. I'm limited to the technical capabilities of a much less powerful machine than your average desktop. (i.e. The Nintendo Wii) Since I couldn't push as many pixels on that platform, I threw in a few cinematic effects to add some pizazz. I can and have made that game run so fast on the desktop so as to be unplayable. Thus what you see is intentional limiting to keep a game at a reasonable speed. Browsers are capable of a LOT more these days.
It's really not that hard once you get the hang of it. The big difference I think is that it's not a very mature market yet. But it is growing and FAST. I give it a year, maybe two before JS applications start displacing Flash.
Check these out:
http://blog.nihilogic.dk/2009/01/2008-year-of-awesome-javascript.html
http://www.pixastic.com/
http://ejohn.org/blog/processingjs/
http://jstween.blogspot.com/
Forget the imagination, how about a little sense? Most radioactive materials are too heavy to remain airborne. They will fall before they can do damage, even if ground up. Most targets would not be used for farming, so the ground assault from the materials won't be effective. And even if you target farming, the government will simply evacuate the land and pull of a layer of topsoil. Furthermore, the grinding process poses a greater risk to the person grinding than to the area intended for dispersal.
The experts have been over dirty bombs upside down and backwards. Their conclusion is the same conclusion that occurs to anyone with even a modicum of nuclear knowledge: Dirty bombs don't work.
Period. End of Story.
Somewhat correct. The key issue to keep in mind is that the spec is usually vetted to the point where the specification is correct. Sun then uses a test kit to ensure that VMs meet the specification. Sometimes an error is not caught and the implementation has to be updated. However, these situations are few and far between. They rarely affect code deployed using the APIs. (e.g. I once had an executable JAR file with a manifest that didn't meet the standard. My fault, but the JVM didn't call me on it. I had to fix it when Sun made their JVM more restrictive.)
Good. Because your anecdote isn't even valid. LTPA authentication is an IBM proprietary extension. From the sound of that link, it appears that IBM broke the LTPA functionality he was using. Which is one of my major gripes with IBM. They first convince people to use garbage that isn't in the spec, then they stop supporting it or change the way they support it in future versions.
You didn't. I did. ASP.NET 2.0 was a radical change to ASP.NET. That's why users are forced to convert or continue running 1.1.
Bad analogy. Most car flaws are implementation problems, not design flaws in the underlying architecture. Usually the implementation issues are resolved in the next model year without a significant change to the vehicle platform. In fact, cars are far more evolutionary than most people realize. Revolutions in vehicle design are few and far between.
Great improvements can usually be done without breaking old code. For some reason Microsoft decided that wasn't an option.
No, DLL Hell teaches us that global libraries are BAD. Because applications can rely on buggy behavior or because experimental libraries need to make radical changes, it's better that applications be able to link against libraries locally rather than having everything global.
Ignoring the pain and anguish caused during the transition period when IIS didn't support running both, then sort of did, and now mostly does, there's also the issue of obsolescence. Microsoft has basically made a decision for you that your code is now obsolete. At some point it will become inconvenient for Microsoft to continue supporting you and you will be left without an upgrade path. Certain features are already unavailable to users of the 1.x series of ASP.NET.
J2EE OTOH adds features into the same framework. I remember when JSPs were first implemented. It was a snap to use JSPs to make my next version of an application more sophisticated with less work.
SxS is a patch (not a solution!) to a core design problem with Windows. Microsoft dropped support in ASP.NET 2.0.
May I point out what I said in another post in this thread.
You may read the rest of the argument here: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/23/0539240
Effectively you are attempting to commit me to a black and white answer that I did not commit to. For every answer there are many shades of gray to go with it. It is silly to assume that just because someone does X it automatically means Z even if Y can be cooperative with X.
In this particular case, Apple's iTunes store is represented by Pandora. That is assured. Why does Apple need to make bad press for themselves by bringing the hammer down on Pandora for offering links to alternative stores? That's not in their terms of service, nor is it a condition they advertise anywhere. Clearly taking that tack would only cause more trouble for Apple than they would save.
However, Apple is easily in the position to say, "Net radio would be too heavyweight for 3G networks. No net radio apps." Which is a card they could have played when Net Radio apps were first submitted. Yet since Pandora supports Net Radio as a method of encouraging electronic purchases (of which iTunes has a distinct advantage) it was in their interest to allow such applications.
My comment was more directed toward video content rather than audio content. An hour long television show is easily 300MB of data. That's a lot to send over 3G and an insane amount to send over EDGE. Audio is certainly a concern, but it's obvious that Apple and AT&T feel that the stream is sufficiently thin enough to stream over those connections. So *shrug*. Given the recent announcement that iTunes music will be available over 3G, it may be related to the 3G upgrades. Possibly, Apple was even watching Pandora to see if it would cause harm to the networks. If it did, they could have locked out the app and asked everyone to upgrade to a WiFi only version.
Nonsense. Offering consumers options makes them happy. Apple knows that tight integration with their product ensures that a large number of them will use their store. It does not mean that they have to lock out every possible competitor in an attempt to create themselves anti-trust issues. Especially when the competitor's music doesn't operate on the very music device the user is surfing with.
In effect, Apple is competing in the market. They use their control not to lock out potential competitors, but rather to ensure that their competitors can't lock them out of their own channels.
The point being that Pandora works WITH the iPhone and Apple's revenue streams rather than against those revenue streams like a radio webapp would.
Here's a screenshot of Pandora. Note the third button down: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20080710/iPhone-menu_270x502.jpg
(For those too lazy to click: "Buy from iTunes")
Flash supports H.264 codecs. So in that respect, it actually works with Apple's designs for multimedia. Flash is also a pseudo-open platform, making it reasonably appealing to implement on any platform. Of course, the only reason why anyone feels it's a must-have is because of the multimedia capabilities. e.g. If you look at the Wii, the overriding purpose of Flash support on the Internet Channel was Youtube support. The staff have said as much and have ignored other sites with Flash players that don't work.
Apple sidestepped that issue by working out a deal with Youtube to provide direct MP4 access to videos. That allows the iPhone to have Youtube support (which doesn't compete with their offerings) without supporting the Flash player. Jobs also knew he could sell it because he talked Youtube into giving them higher quality videos. Higher quality provided justification for the path taken by Apple.
Let's be intellectually honest for a moment. Apple's actions are neither sinister or altruistic. They are simply good business. While my answer of "Flash competes" is the distilled answer, there is more to the story than that. Take Youtube as an example. Apple truly is providing a better experience with a custom application that fits the phone rather than allowing users to use an interface that is designed for desktop PCs. This devalues the Flash player and raises questions as to whether or not it's needed. If you dig further into that line of logic, you find that Flash enables interfaces that go against the slick interface of the phone. Apple has some control over HTML rendering, but practically none over Flash rendering. Thus another ding against the platform. Add it all up and Apple's decisions start to make a lot of sense.
However, would Apple kick Adobe out on their can if they approached Apple with a proposition for supporting Flash? Probably not. Again, it comes down to good business. If Adobe can make an offer that appeals to Apple, it may overcome the aspects that devalue the platform to them. The only catch is that Apple doesn't need Adobe as much as Adobe needs Apple to maintain their multimedia monopoly on the web. So Adobe will be in the unenviable position of having to make the most compromise to reach an agreement.
Same with Sun. If Sun can reach an agreement on Java that appeal to Apple, Apple may change their tune. But as it stands today, Apple has ensured that they don't need anyone else's support. Especially if it causes aspects of the platform to leave their control. Given the ease with which an application could overwhelm a cellular network, control is something that Apple needs in this situation. It's just good business.
As an app platform, Flash can't do anything that Javascript/DHTML can't. (See my sig for an example.) Except for multimedia.
The apps in the appstore are there because the appstore provides a useful distribution channel to get apps in front of users. i.e. a "push" model. Apps on the Internet are much harder to find and require active searching by the user. i.e. the "pull" model
Getting warmer. If Apple sees any threat from Flash, it's in providing a distribution system for multimedia that is out of Apple's control. Remember, Apple still makes a lot of money off the iTunes Music and TV stores. They don't want to have competition from the likes of Hulu.com or NetRadio.com. Especially if users get the bright idea of streaming this data over a cell network. (ugh)
The technology that worries Apple for apps is Java. Though I have to concede that J2ME apps tend to be craptastic. They're simply underpowered for a device as sophisticated as the iPhone.
Just this week.
A worm differs from a virus only in so much that it doesn't need to copy itself into a system program. For all intents and purposes however, the difference between the two terms is antiquated.
I'm amazed the drum made it this long. I mean, the drums on those old lasers were usually pretty hearty, but 13 years is pushing it! :-)
Sounds about right! Thanks for the chuckle. :-)