Why does Internet Explorer have to suck so bad?
So I'm trying to turn this asstacular "template" into something thats actually half decent. Once again, I am struck with awe at the idiocy of IE "standards".
#1) The "alt" and "title" properties are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS
alt is for alternate text. This is used by browsers accessable to the handicapped to be able to text-to-speech images. However, Microsoft (doing their typical breakage of standards) decides that alt tags should show up in tooltips. Real handy, whoever came up with tooltips diserves a medal, and I advocate their use wherever appropriate. Microsoft would get props from me except for one small detail.... the purpose of the "title" attribute is to give tooltips over anything (tds, tables, divs, imgs, you name it). So once again, Microsoft shafts the end user by breaking a standard. What makes this one particularily dispicable is that it was the standard that allows people who cannot see to use the web.
#2) document.all is the root of all evil
The DOM is there for a reason. Javascript, being a language that is far too loose already (thank you common man, you have lowered yet another common denominator to your level), needs all the structure it can get. I dont have beef with it forgiving a missing comma. I do have beef with it breaking the logic of the way to reference elements. Thank god the W3C is moving towards a more standard xml node navigation scheme, but since that requires intelligence beyond that of a chimp (there is no such requirement to use frontpage), chances are the only places your gonna see that adopted is by people who actually know how to code proper js.
#3) ActiveX
Guess what the number 1 reason malware is so prevelent on windows machines? No, its not because they are the biggest target. It is because of activex. If you take a step back, there was this wonderful invention back in the day called the java applet. It added functionality to a webpage previously impossible to implement. Not only that, it was cross platform, and extremely secure (so secure that java is synonemous with enterprise development, where security is a top priority). Microsoft saw this technology and said "We dont have it. However, its a standard, so lets corrupt it and shaft the user base with our un ethical practices like we usually deal with things like this." And that was the birth of visual j++. Sun Microsystems, the guys who own java, were furious (if i remember right, John Schwartz gave out Bill Gates email, and asked for the community to flame the hell out of him). They sued and sued and sued, and eventually won. Microsoft dropped their attempts to steal java, but the way they killed the applet were much more devious.
They simply kept supporting it.
Now, microsoft supporting a technology that is not under their patents is usually a sure sign that they are trying to kill it. This time they went for an extremely elegent solution, they kept their version of the jvm (late 80s technology), and never upgraded it. Sun of course had plenty of upgrades, but remember, we are talking windows users here, the very definition of sheeple. Since the archaic microsoft version was already installed, they simply didnt bother downloading something better. At the same time that this was going down, microsoft rushed their answer to the applet out the door, calling it (thats right, you guessed it) ActiveX.
Having your browser download and execute code off the net is an EXTREMELY risky proposition. Because of this, java has about a billion levels of security. Microsoft seems to think that people are generally trustworthy, so they have a grand total of one, that is easily overriden by the dozens of ie exploits that come out every month. As such, Microsoft shafted their userbase yet again, and the users accepted it with open arms. IE has a 95% marketshare, and activex is the standard for live content, java applets having gone the way of the dinosaur.
Anywhoo, theres my top three gripes with IE. There are many, many, many more, but the promotion of sloppy coding, altering standards to shaft the blind, and the fact that using it can break your computer are at the top of the list. Expect a part two of this post sometime, need to stop slacking and get back to work.
I am of the opinion that the vast majority of the planet are lemmings, who mindlessly follow their neighbor, and judge "quality" by how hip it is. The monopoly of Internet Explorer is the first of the justifications of that opinion, expect more in future posts.
#1) The "alt" and "title" properties are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS
alt is for alternate text. This is used by browsers accessable to the handicapped to be able to text-to-speech images. However, Microsoft (doing their typical breakage of standards) decides that alt tags should show up in tooltips. Real handy, whoever came up with tooltips diserves a medal, and I advocate their use wherever appropriate. Microsoft would get props from me except for one small detail.... the purpose of the "title" attribute is to give tooltips over anything (tds, tables, divs, imgs, you name it). So once again, Microsoft shafts the end user by breaking a standard. What makes this one particularily dispicable is that it was the standard that allows people who cannot see to use the web.
#2) document.all is the root of all evil
The DOM is there for a reason. Javascript, being a language that is far too loose already (thank you common man, you have lowered yet another common denominator to your level), needs all the structure it can get. I dont have beef with it forgiving a missing comma. I do have beef with it breaking the logic of the way to reference elements. Thank god the W3C is moving towards a more standard xml node navigation scheme, but since that requires intelligence beyond that of a chimp (there is no such requirement to use frontpage), chances are the only places your gonna see that adopted is by people who actually know how to code proper js.
#3) ActiveX
Guess what the number 1 reason malware is so prevelent on windows machines? No, its not because they are the biggest target. It is because of activex. If you take a step back, there was this wonderful invention back in the day called the java applet. It added functionality to a webpage previously impossible to implement. Not only that, it was cross platform, and extremely secure (so secure that java is synonemous with enterprise development, where security is a top priority). Microsoft saw this technology and said "We dont have it. However, its a standard, so lets corrupt it and shaft the user base with our un ethical practices like we usually deal with things like this." And that was the birth of visual j++. Sun Microsystems, the guys who own java, were furious (if i remember right, John Schwartz gave out Bill Gates email, and asked for the community to flame the hell out of him). They sued and sued and sued, and eventually won. Microsoft dropped their attempts to steal java, but the way they killed the applet were much more devious.
They simply kept supporting it.
Now, microsoft supporting a technology that is not under their patents is usually a sure sign that they are trying to kill it. This time they went for an extremely elegent solution, they kept their version of the jvm (late 80s technology), and never upgraded it. Sun of course had plenty of upgrades, but remember, we are talking windows users here, the very definition of sheeple. Since the archaic microsoft version was already installed, they simply didnt bother downloading something better. At the same time that this was going down, microsoft rushed their answer to the applet out the door, calling it (thats right, you guessed it) ActiveX.
Having your browser download and execute code off the net is an EXTREMELY risky proposition. Because of this, java has about a billion levels of security. Microsoft seems to think that people are generally trustworthy, so they have a grand total of one, that is easily overriden by the dozens of ie exploits that come out every month. As such, Microsoft shafted their userbase yet again, and the users accepted it with open arms. IE has a 95% marketshare, and activex is the standard for live content, java applets having gone the way of the dinosaur.
Anywhoo, theres my top three gripes with IE. There are many, many, many more, but the promotion of sloppy coding, altering standards to shaft the blind, and the fact that using it can break your computer are at the top of the list. Expect a part two of this post sometime, need to stop slacking and get back to work.
I am of the opinion that the vast majority of the planet are lemmings, who mindlessly follow their neighbor, and judge "quality" by how hip it is. The monopoly of Internet Explorer is the first of the justifications of that opinion, expect more in future posts.
posted by Google Ninja at 10:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home