Microsoft Adopts SVG For Internet Explorer 9 152
An anonymous reader writes "SVG has been a published standard for almost a decade. Microsoft has had nothing to do with it, even while every other major browser adopted SVG as a supported format and interface. Just in the last few weeks, though, Microsoft has thrown a surprising amount of its weight behind SVG." This means for IE 9, but it's a start.
Nothing new (Score:2)
It's just more mulling over the recently released IE9 preview, which went through the /. torture rack pretty much as soon as it was announced. SVG support was already there, and was discussed alongside all the other newly supported standards, so what's the point of TFS?
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah I was thinking pretty much the same thing, but this is another article for a difference crowd with its own purpose. And with all that said, perhaps it's time to put Microsoft's SVG implementation through the /. torture rack.
Even during the previous article's discussion, a question on my mind (that I was afraid would have been modded offtopic) was "how faithful will their implementaiton of SVG be?" Microsoft is quite famous for doing things in such a way that it makes the world believe everyone else is broken. So now I am left to wonder about this too.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
I've tested with an application that I'm developing that generates complex SVG network maps (that validate as SVG 1.1 with the W3C validator with no errors).
Linear gradients don't work at all, stroke and fill colors appear to be sporadic. JavaScript doesn't work (but I didn't expect it to as it's targeted to Chrome and Safari primarily right now).
I expect that MS will add more functionality as the preview progresses. They have a lot of work to do, regardless.
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the SVG support in the Platform Preview is definitely a work in progress; it really should be viewed as an early alpha in overall completeness and quality. However, MS has apparently committed to a full and proper SVG implementation in IE9. Some links worth checking out:
Platform Preview gives Web developers first taste of IE9 [arstechnica.com] - Scroll down to SVG heading for a nice summary
SVG in IE9 Roadmap [msdn.com] - Official IE blog post on SVG
IE9 on SVG Test Suite (Score:3, Informative)
If you look at Haavard's blog [opera.com] on the Opera site, you will find a reference to run of the SVG 1.1 Test Suite on IE9 [codedread.com]. In contrast to Microsoft's SVG test suite (of about 104 individual tests in 7 areas), the W3C's test suite has 275 tests, each of which typically has a dozen or so subtests. On the standard test, IE9 passed 28.36 % of the tests. All other browsers are above 60%. Once SVG becomes viable, I expect that all of the other browsers will quickly advance into the 90%+ range. Opera is already wel
Re: (Score:2)
A skeptic, that is to say, anyone who can recall Microsoft's behavior over the past 20 years, might wonder if Microsoft ran the official SVG test suite on all competing browsers to find areas where they failed. They then built a second test where they know the others will fail.
You mean like Hickson did with Acid3? Whatever set of tests you're using, if they're incomplete (and they always will be), they will be biased in terms of coverage. Some test suites like Acid3 are meant as a bludgeon to wag the dog of a competitor or certain organization, some are designed to ensure that features you care about are supported in they way you believe they should be, and others are just QA guys doing their best to make sure their product works. In any event, whichever set of tests you code
Re: (Score:2)
More likely: Microsoft identified areas they thought were important. They then made plans to implement and test those areas. Once the implementation was done and the tests passed (thereby 'validating' the tests) they were submitted to the working group. Tests can be tricky to write and it is a good idea to make sure they work as expected before putting them into production. It shouldn't be a surprise that tests submitted by Microsoft work on IE9.
SVG is still under development. The IE9 preview is going to fa
Re: (Score:1)
I don't find this surprising. It's a policy Microsoft has used since circa 1990:
EMBRACE an existing standard/format that has gained popularity.
EXTEND the format with new functions which are copyrighted by Microsoft, so competing products can't display the pages properly.
EXTINGUISH the competing companies by telling users that those companies' products only provide half the functionality, therefore you should use Microsoft's product. And oh yeah, MS provides it for free with Windows, so it's doubleplus goo
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
And with all that said, perhaps it's time to put Microsoft's SVG implementation through the /. torture rack.
Not necessary - here is a nice comparision for all current browser implementations of SVG and how much tests of the official SVG test suite they pass : SVG Implementation Table [codedread.com]. If you click on the chart you get a very detailed view.
To summarize:
IE9: 29% of the SVG test cases,
Firefox: 72%,
Chrome/Safari: 83
Opera: 93%
IE9 is way behind, Opera is the winner in this test
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Whenever anyone runs objective tests of browser functionality, Opera usually does very well. I'm amazed it doesn't have more market share.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well, that's a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, when they create a proprietary extension to SVG that allows embedding smart code. Perhaps they'll call it ActiveSVG.
Actually I'm not sure if that's a EEE joke or a security problems joke.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
They say that SVG is an abbreviation of SilVerlight Graphics extension.
Re: (Score:1)
Embrace, enhance, ...
They've been down that road many times before.
Re: (Score:2)
That isn't working very well since we entered the FOSS era. MS simply can't extinguish FOSS, they can at best reprime it. And a repressed competitor will be foverever a source of costs, an extict one will not.
Re: (Score:1)
and web developers breathe another sigh of relief (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, you must be new here. You could have summed that up with the cliche "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" and have been moderated to 5 already. Here, watch:
:)
Microsoft is clearly trying their tactic of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish using SVG.
There.
Now, just kick back and watch the moderation roll in
Extinguish? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem of MS: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The problem of MS: (Score:5, Insightful)
SVG graphics on web pages is simply the most appropriate thing. Web developers/designers all over have been chomping at the bit to use SVG because the results are beautiful and scalable. MSIE support is and has been the one thing preventing them from actually doing it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but.... a lot of companies have dropped their SVG support after MS (or was it Adobe) decided to stop supporting their SVG plugin.
Now IE9 will have native SVG support, that just means *most* browsers will have it (ie not IE7 or 8), which still means that it is not widespread enough for adoption. Maybe in a few years when everyone has migrated from IE8 to 9, but you know how long that will be. In the meantime, all the other browsers will be running something much better like webGL and MS will be still p
Re: (Score:2)
Champing, not chomping (Score:2)
I think you mean champing at the bit. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_%28horse%29#In_popular_culture [wikipedia.org] for more detail on that.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a web developer and sometimes I only have to target Firefox and I've never been able to figure out how to use an SVG file in an HTML document. It's not supported by the IMG tag, you can can't use it as a CSS background, etc. It's a confusing as hell technology that hasn't taken off because figuring out how to use it on a page is way too complicated.
Re: (Score:2)
Browsing is also mobile browsing nowadays. Microsoft has not the capability any more to impose technologies (Silverlight etc.) on users any more. If 50% of the devices dont support your webpage and never will, you can not ignore any mor anybody who can not install some plugin. Morover IE is also loosing foothold on the desktop. So what was a move to hinder a competitor seriously (Why should i embed SVG on webpage if IE can not view it?) is slowly becoming a disadvantage. If Firefox and google chrome get the image of "just working fine" when compared to the IE and IE gets the image of causing problems, then they can stop making IE9.
The mobile space really is exploding. Smart phones were fairly useless for the longest time but the tech has really matured. They're very useful machines. And with the prevalence of non-Windows netbooks, there's more and more pressure for true interoperability.
WHY are everybody talking about svg in browsers ? (Score:1, Interesting)
Every time somone mentiones this I go to adobe and try the svg test... and I can't se anything except "Missing Plugin".
What's the trick ???
Re: (Score:2)
To get the plugin?
Re: (Score:2)
True enough, you would think.
I needed the plugin because certain aspects of SVG weren't fully supported (such as the inclusing of text), at least in FF3.5.
Re:WHY are everybody talking about svg in browsers (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Your browser might be picking the wrong mime type for SVG. I can't find the details, but I recall that an early Adobe tool established 'image/svg-xml' in the windows registry, and firefox will inherit that; changing it to 'image/svg+xml' should fix things (I suppose installing a later version of the Adobe SVG plugin should also do that, who knows).
What a Coincidence (Score:5, Insightful)
There appears to be an inverse relationship between IE market share and its implementation of standards. Applaud MS for good decisions, but never forget how they acted when they owned the market.
Re:What a Coincidence (Score:5, Insightful)
There appears to be an inverse relationship between IE market share and its implementation of standards. Applaud MS for good decisions, but never forget how they acted when they owned the market.
I mostly share your perspective, but I must admit from a business point of view it made perfect business sense for Microsoft to drag their heels for as long as they basically had a monopoly on the web browser market. Why should a company with 90+% share support standards? There's no real advantage to them - all implementing better standards support would do is make it less painful for users to try another browser.
But as a web developer, I am much happier being able to code for IE8 than I was for IE7. But let's not forget that IE8 still lags all other browsers in terms of standards support. Saying "they certainly suck less than they used to" is most assuredly damning with faint praise... but it's the truth. Oh, additionally, I will say that developing IE workarounds for our internal pages and systems takes less time now, since (for those anyway) I can say "sorry, we only support the latest version of IE".
Re: (Score:2)
"Saying "they certainly suck less than they used to" is most assuredly damning with faint praise... but it's the truth."
The "it sucks less" reasoning has been the case since the upgrade from DOS 1.0 to 1.1
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
I mostly share your perspective, but I must admit from a business point of view it made perfect business sense for Microsoft to drag their heels for as long as they basically had a monopoly on the web browser market. Why should a company with 90+% share support standards? There's no real advantage to them - all implementing better standards support would do is make it less painful for users to try another browser.
Close, but you're missing the point that, at 90+% market share, you are the standard.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should a company with 90+% share support standards? There's no real advantage to them - all implementing better standards support would do is make it less painful for users to try another browser.
Because many customers are smart enough to see that as a trap. When I buy a printer I price ink, and check if the printer has user-hostile firmware.
If MS had built a solid OS instead of focusing on short-term profits from office lock-in they'd be what they wanted, the core of every new device.
Instead by forcing the core developers, API-shapers, and savvy users away by locking down their OS and mutilating public processes they essentially forced the development of the new alternatives.
I disagree (Score:2)
No great OS would be able to get a monopoly-like adoption on even PC desktops. The reason is that users have disparate needs, and only lock-in can make they agree on a pltaform. A great OS has no lock-in, by definition.
See how many different distros are used just on the ninche ocupied by Linux. One company would never be able to do all those tasks equaly well.
Re: (Score:2)
This is "business" in the sense of "profit is the objective, morals are not factored in".
The more consumers accept this kind of attitude, the more they will get it.
You know, as it turns out, even from the perspective of pure profit, adhering to standards still makes sense. (To the degree that consumers have some brains.) You can build customer loyalty by proving yourself to be in a symbiotic relationship with them. Conversely, Microsoft has made me an adversary. Would I be so strongly opposed to using M
Re: (Score:2)
A better question is, when one product holds 90%+ market share, why would any sane standards body create something different? If IE had 90% of the market share, the standard should have been very close to IE's behavior at the time. In any other industry, standards bodies exist to codify existing practices, not invent new ones. That's how you create a standard with minimal disruption. Instead we're in a situation where more than a decade later, there still isn't agreement in web browser behavior for the majo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Loss of market share is certainly a factor in this. But not the only one.
One big factor is all the legal and political pressure to play nice with others. One result is that browser choice screen that EU customers get. Another is the fact that they've given no preference to their new free antivirus software; not so long ago, they would have just added it to the Windows install and ignored the complaints.
But I think the biggest change is a cultural shift among all software people. Engineers use to be a lot mo
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with standards is that they're generally designed more by the losers than by the winners.
The argument could be made that, given that at the time they were being devised IE had almost 90% of the market share, that at least some of the IE way ought to have been the standard. After all, Netscape was as guilty of changing and polluting the web standards as anyone else back in those days.
While there are certainly some things in IE which are just strange(the way it handles the z-axis for instance isn'
Re: (Score:2)
That was caused by losing some market share, rest assured, but the change is a bit deeper than that. Just ask yourself what Microsoft gains publishing IE. The answer used to be that they wated to stop the Web from developing, but now that they are losing market share they aren't able to do that anymore. So why launch a new version?
IE is now the prefered front-end of all Microsoft web services (the ones for the cloud and the ones for the LAN), owning the front end gives them the oportunity to make a much bet
Earth hour? Useless, it shall be IE HOUR! (Score:1, Interesting)
Earth hour? Useless! This day shall be known as IE HOUR! Everybody starts their IE's around UTC+0 12:00!
On a more serious note, why don't they do these real improvements in small increments, so that these would appear to IE8 too, but faster.
Too Slow (Score:4, Funny)
Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)
At this rate, IE 14 might actually be worth using!
They probably just adopted it... (Score:3)
Just kidding, but Microsoft has been pretty insular... it seems most of the time they would rather contemplate their own navel than check to see what anybody else is doing.
Re: (Score:1)
At risk of my own reputation, I have to ask: Is that a reference to Magic: The Gathering's "Unglued" set?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually IE5 for mac had SVG support back in... 2001? Also full PNG support. Best browser Microsoft ever made.
Re: (Score:2)
Poor Microsoft (Score:1)
On Hugs, Stilts, and Water (Score:2, Funny)
embrace, extend, extinguish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me a suspicious paranoid old bugger, but if you been buggered by someone decades, you tend to grow a bit cautious.
The more I read about IE9, the more I wonder "what's the catch". Because MS finally getting it and playing nice just doesn't seem to be an option.
And low and behold. No IE9 for XP, despite it still being sold by MS and still being widely used. The excuse: "we can't because we are only a multi-billion dollar company and can't afford to hire the very best and just make it work".
An MS apologists commented on the last article that it was impossible to run IE9 under XP because of the hardware rendering... clearly he doesn't know that A: DirectX entire point was to abstract hardware to the point it also (used to) support it purely running in software mode" and B: That all the other browsers have no such problem.
No, I see MS making the same mistake they made countless time before. Not killing of their old crap. Learn to clean up after yourself. You dumped IE6-7-8 on the world, now get rid of them.
It would be doable for MS, and they are not. Why? Because they are still the same old "can't do" company. MS apologists and the naive jumped in Windows Mobile 7 to, and then finally it was announced, no multi-tasking and no copy&past... so it was just like all the releases before, fundemental things that WERE PROMISED, not making it into the release.
So, I am going to see what MS finally delivers. Their promises have no value.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I see MS making the same mistake they made countless time before. Not killing of their old crap.
You don't suppose that's exactly what they're trying to do by saying IE9 won't be available for Windows XP, do you?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
An MS apologists commented on the last article that it was impossible to run IE9 under XP because of the hardware rendering... clearly he doesn't know that A: DirectX entire point was to abstract hardware to the point it also (used to) support it purely running in software mode" and B: That all the other browsers have no such problem.
This is where people get confused so easily. For IE9 to work on XP, they would have to recreate the WDDM for XP. And when you do that, there are things in the WDDM that other levels of the OS do not have or understand, so essentially you are having to build XP into Vista.
This is why DX10 was impossible on XP as well, as the XPDM does not handle the low level video functions the same way nor do they have the features that are expected that the WDDM provides like VRAM virtualization and GPU Scheduling/Thread
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What are you babbling about. IT IS A BROWSER. Other browsers can support standards on XP, so why can't they? Opera/Firefox/Chome do it on various OS'es at the same time. So why can't MS?
Well maybe you should be paying attention to technology a bit more instead of ranting about crap you have no idea about.
IE9 uses an internal GPU assisted framework and GPU assitsted composer. This is why IE9 can animate complex SVG and HTML5 content on pages that make OTHER BROWSERS choke.
Since IE9 depends on the GPU 'assistance' it uses the framework and driver models of Vista and Win7 that allo the OS to share system RAM with the VRAM and gives the OS control over the 'scheduling' of the GPU.
These things
Re: (Score:2)
The catch is that they can't stop the web anymore, and they need a half decent IE to sell Exchange, Sharepoint and their cloud services.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Go look at how HTML evolved, and which browsers supported which features, and you'll see that they didn't do anything the other browser makers weren't also doing. Grab older editions of, say, O'Reilly's HTML Definitive Guide, and you'll find a large chunk of the tags are marked as non-standard Netscape extensions, for instance.
The web got big on these non-standard tags. Many eventually became standard (although sometimes in not quite compatible ways). The big difference between IE and the others is that Mic
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is not that other browsers implement their own standards. The problem is that Microsoft didn't implement the actual standards. Sure, Webkit creates their own "--webkit-border-radius" CSS-property, but which property is there for IE to do rounded borders? Nothing. There's a whole list of features which have long been supported in other browsers and could be used to make the web more awesome, but because IE supports none of these, they're holding back the development of the web as a whole.
It's a g
Re: (Score:2)
"But they did it, too..." is never an excuse for misbehavior.
Anyone tuned in to what was going on in the early days knows that Netscape was behaving badly, too. They don't get a free pass to be assholes either.
Hardly news... (Score:1)
This was announced on the 16th of March:
http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/KEY02 [visitmix.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft had announced it would join the SVG Working Group, and that IE9 would use Direct2D and DirectWrite (connect the two freakin' dots), weeks if not months ago. I hope others here are merely acting like SVG (of some sort) in IE9 is news, and not actually surprised with Acid3's breath behind their neck and all.
Now, a final version of IE9 with a perfect implem of the language, or one that rivals those of Firefox, Webkit, or Opera? That would be news.
Strategic move microsoft (Score:2)
Re:Strategic move microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
I've said this before, and I'll say it again.
Silverlight was not released just to watch movies and animations. Just because that's what Flash has devolved into over the years, doesn't mean that that's what Microsoft(or anyone else) wants to do with Silverlight(or JavaFX if it still exists).
Silverlight is aimed at creating Rich Internet Applications. It's more of an alternative to AJAX than to Flash because, while Flash can be used to create RIAs, no one does.
Unfortunately, the demo RIA for everyone of these platforms is a video player, mostly because it's dead simple, looks flashy and is something you can't do in Javascript, so everyone forgets that.
I really don't think that HTML5 and/or SVG taking over the animation or video playing market share is going to make any dent in Silverlight, because that's not what it was designed for.
Re: (Score:1)
You can do videos with Javascript. They just don't work on IE.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I'm well aware you can do that. When I say that's what Flash has devolved to, I mean that it's essentially become almost synonymous with animations and video players.
People can build RIAs with it, and one could even argue that that was essentially its original intent, even before Flex, and some of what gets built in it is actually fairly good(barring the god awful design legacies Flash is stuck with from the hack jobs it took to make it work on the systems available when it began).
My general point was t
Favorite SVG demos or cryptic '??? Cameron Laird'? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Try this page: SVG WOW [svg-wow.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And that page shows why Flash is so great. Watch the CPU usage meter as the demos play.
Imagine the bandwidth that was wasted (Score:1)
Imagine all those gradients and rounded corners - how they wasted so much pre-video bandwidth. Imagine the speed at which those pages could've loaded over a 56 kbps connection. All because Microsoft had monopoly on de-facto "standards" and is abusing it. Well we don't need you anymore, dying old browser.
Security risks and standards (Score:1)
Dear Microsoft: (Score:2, Insightful)
C-A-N-V-A-S.
Thanks.
Step one: Done. (Score:3, Insightful)
Next: Step two: Extend.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Agreed. The new browser probably won't run on XP such that people will be forced to buy Windows 7 to run MS's newer browser.
Re:Pull Factor (Score:5, Informative)
Windows XP (Server 2003/R2 is still mainstream, but they won't port IE9 to it becaus of the same reasons like they did with 2000 and IE 7), is in extended support, which means no more new features, just security updates until 2014.
Now, if you'd like those features, Microsoft has a program in which you pay the devs extra to port it to (insert older Windows OS here).
IE 9 will run on Vista and 7.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem with that little theory is that the "pull" is stronger in the other direction. If you're running XP and IE8, and you need SVG, instead of paying $100 to upgrade to IE9, you'll just download FF or Chrome and Microsoft loses more browser share.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Never heard of DirectX, did you? XP doesn't have Windows Presentation Foundation (which uses DirectX for acceleration btw), but this is hardly the same as not having GPU support.
I'm fairly sure MS made the conscious decision to build IE9 on top of this new framework so it wouldn't be compatible with XP.
Understandably, because why would people upgrade to Vista/Win7 when they can get all the goodies for naught?
If they only wanted to do hardware acceleration, that w
Re: (Score:2)
[...] probably [...]
So much fucking FUD, people.
That's not FUD, it's a realistic worldview. Whenever MS can do something to force people to upgrade, or buy an 'Ultimate' edition, they do.
For instance, instead of fixing Vista they released Windows 7, merely proving that if you bought Vista you're fucked. Similarly, hackers have proven time and again that these "can't be backported" issues are a total lie when they accomplish what MS itself "can't".
It's just good healthy skepticism about the claims of a known liar.
Re:Pull Factor (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. The new browser probably won't run on XP such that people will be forced to buy Windows 7 to run MS's newer browser.
And you think this is a BAD thing? So Mr. Linux what version of the kernel are you running? 1.0? Which dist, Ubuntu 1.0? I bet your Linux install isn't a 10 year old operating system, nor would you even consider running or supporting one that is that old. So why should Microsoft? XP was written a very long time ago before any of this intertubes stuff ever was even popular. The sooner MS can kill it off, the better the entire planet will be. The only thing that MS should kill off sooner is IE6.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) There is not, and never has been, an Ubuntu version 1.0.
2) I don't know how old you are. If you are old enough, you may recall a period in human (and computing) history referred to as "the Nineties." It was a rough-and-tumble era in which browsers fought and bled and died, when this whole newfangled "dot com" thing happened and people all around the globe started using all kinds of intertubes-type stuff. Windows XP, by the way, was not around back then.
Granted, it was not discovered that the Internet was
Re: (Score:1)
1) There is not, and never has been, an Ubuntu version 1.0.
Duck! *Wooooosh*
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So Mr. Linux what version of the kernel are you running?
And which version of windows are majority of users running? If most Linux users would use kernel 2.4 and FF would only support 2.6, you think it would be taken lightly?
Re: (Score:2)
If most Linux users would use kernel 2.4 and FF would only support 2.6, you think it would be taken lightly?
On Slashdot? Yes. It would be praised. One guy'd even get a +5 post explaining how it shows the benefits of Open Source.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
"I bet your Linux install isn't a 10 year old operating system"
Yes, but a 2.4 kernel (10 years old) can run all userspace programs that the 2.6 kernel can. And I likely suspect that the 2.2 and 2.0 kernels wouldn't have problems, though I don't feel like firing up a VM to find out. I think the only kernels that would have problems would be the ones that only ran a.out instead of ELF, and you have to go back 15 years (prior to 1.2) to do that.
Sure is butthurt Windows fanboys in here.
Maybe Windows would get
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought we'd addressed this point? The question is not when was XP released, it was when did they stop shipping it. They were selling it concurrently with Vista for netbooks and you can still buy machines from companies like Dell with XP preinstalled, and checking it seems that they are still licensing XP for ULCPCs until October 22, 2010.
A typical Linux user would probably be quite upset if his distribution started including software that didn't run on a version of Linux that they were shipping. A M
Re: (Score:2)
Visual Basic has morphed into so many incompatible things over the years that a few places keep Win98 machines with a specific version of VB just to run a single undocumented app put together by a guy with a few dozen papers to his name too busy running a company or University department to update it.
The oddest thing I've got like that (apart from the scientific single purpose VB apps) is a plot server for a specific type of vector graphics running on a SparcStation 5 t
Re:Pull Factor (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You run into problems here if the systems you have to support are 15 to 25 years old though, and the software to support them does not run under anything newer than Windows XP. And telling the customer he has to rip out his whole infrastructure and replace it by something new (and to pay for it) gets ugly very fast.
We still keep some Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 boxes around for those tasks though.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh my god, it's like the time they refused to give us 32 bit IE for NT 3.51. We had tu run the crappy 16 bit version. We eventually upgrade to 4, but ran Netscape in the meantime.
Somehow, I think all of the big businesses locked into IE6 won't care.
Re: (Score:2)
"So the next time you see a well-thought-out, reasonable-sounding response to an obviously-trollish comment on Slashdot remember: IT COULD BE AN ASTROTURFER'
Sounds sweet. Can we have some of those?
Re: (Score:2)