Users and Web Developers Vent Over IE7

Spinlock_1977 writes "ComputerWorld is running a story about developers frustration with IE 7, and Microsoft's upcoming plans (or lack thereof) for it. From the article, "But the most pointed comment came from someone labeled only as dk. You all continue to underestimate the dramatic spillover effect this poor developer experience has had and will continue to have on your other products and services. Let me drive this point home. I am a front-end programmer and a co-founder of a start-up. I can tell you categorically that my team won't download and play with Silverlight ... won't build a Live widget ... won't consider any Microsoft search or ad products in the future.""

Re:Enough already

[MightyMartian]

Instead of wasting our time with crazy back-patting uselessness, will Microsoft please just admit defeat and close up development of IE and hand it over to people who care about the Web and handle it properly? I have wasted too many hours developing sites to work in IE7 that work without further modification in every other browser.

You must be some sort of Communist.

IE8 announced.. (of course with no details)

[ivar]

Seemingly to combat the hate, Dean Hachamovitch (GM for IE) has posted on the IE blog [msdn.com] an announcement for IE8. The big news ? that IE8 will be called... Internet Explorer 8 !!! huzzah!

if (document.all)

[SavvyPlayer]

{ // IE Workaround that we hope we don't have to go back and change the day IE8 ships... ....
}

Re:Trash IE all you want but..

[mugnyte]

"Microsoft Silverlight. How many pieces of flair are YOU coding?"

Re:Wouldn't it be nice....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Microsoft should leave the browser business, as competition is healthy

This has my vote for the most ironic thing ever said on Slashdot.

In the meanwhile, take a look at WPF

[melted]

It's fucking awesome.

It's sort of like HTML for true apps, except:
1. You have a "real" programming language backing it, you can do whatever you want with it, even processor heavy computations. It's FAST.
2. All HTML niggles are fixed. You don't have to dig around in Google to figure out how to lay out a piece of UI. It's just obvious.
3. You can deploy your apps as *.xbap pages. As simple as that. If the user has .NET Framework 3.5, XBAP link will open a sandboxed instance of a full-blown app. This means you don't have to fake it in HTML anymore.
4. Modern UI things that were a giant pain in the ass now don't require much coding aptitude - you can focus on the guts instead. Reflections, halos and transparency out the wazoo.

All of the above assumes you only want things to run on Windows, however. But the new crop of Microsoft dev technologies (updated ASP.NET AJAX, WPF, WCF) and Visual Studio 2008 are really good. Add to this a blockbuster release of SQL Server, an OS and a web server with fewer vulnerabilities than Linux counterparts (Windows 2003 and IIS 6), and you begin to see a worrisome picture. Worrisome to the open source community, that is.

Just plain incompetent

[flyingfsck]

No, MS developers are just plain incompetent. Malevolence gives them far too much credit. To be malevolent, they would actually have to understand, plan and execute - while they cannot actually do any of those, as proven yet again by the Vista death march project.

Do not underestimate fools. Better ones are born all the time and Microsoft is hiring.

Re:Using IE7 sucks...

[Kent Recal]

[...] or blur the page, so that you can't actually see anything at all... for a time.

Oh yea, that has been reported many times. But actually it's not IE blurring the screen, it's your own tears!
Stop using windows and the problem will go away.

Re:Then you will likely go out of business...

[Cheapy]

dk: "What's that smell in the room?"
Others: "It might be that 800lb gorilla over there."
dk: "What 800lb gorilla?"
Others: "The one that's sitting in the corner throwing poo at us."
dk: "I don't know what you're talking about."
Others: "For the love of god, it's right there! Stop ignoring it!"

Re:Enough already

[Anonymous Coward]

"Khrushchev might not be the least evil world leader out there, but he's leaps and bounds better than Stalin. Deaths in the gulag are way down, and far fewer people are being abducted and tortured by the KGB than were by the NKVD."

Re:CSS support

[MightyMartian]

Point 1: You're an immoral Microsoft shill. Redmond sends pathetic worms like you out into forums like Slashdot, hoping that somehow they'll convince the development community that they aren't the worst thing that has happened to standards.

Point 2: You've got me confused with another poster.

Point 3: You're an immoral Microsoft shill.

Re:CSS support

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. This one was good:

...if Microsoft builds it in, they become responsible for bugs, and security holes that result...

...but this one got my coffee spilt over the keyboard:

Microsoft is actually accountable for problems.

Re:Enough already

[Hal_Porter]

I shoulda learned to play them drums

Re:CSS support

[DoctorPepper]

Actually, the cheapest MSDN subscription is the "Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Professional" subscription. It costs $1,199 new, and $799 to renew. True, this still gives you a metric butt-load of software, and if my business depended on Microsoft products, I'd seriously consider it.

Fortunately for me, I'm a Unix admin, and I get all my Unix and Linux for free :-)