Geek wars, better than star wars?

I don't understand what they are saying, but it sounds alright to me.

re: #2 lone_wolf_in_illinois

They said you'd say that.

Firefox 3 will be released soon... wait for it!

And I dont care, in the few years I have been here, I have never been first, so I am going to say it.

First, 1st, thirst, verst, numero uno!

Now, its back to sex thread...

This is the kind of thread that allows me time to pluck my eyebrows. :)

(totally clueless here)

re: #5 A Kiwi Infidel

And I dont care, in the few years I have been here, I have never been first, so I am going to say it.

First, 1st, thirst, verst, numero uno!

You were first right after the other four.

re: #5 A Kiwi Infidel

And I dont care, in the few years I have been here, I have never been first, so I am going to say it.

First, 1st, thirst, verst, numero uno!

Good for you! LOL! :)

Sorta O/T- I posted this this morning. Maybe ome of you missed it...

Rush Limbaugh Resorts to His Bully Pulpit to Get His Mac Fixed
By BRIAN STELTER
Mac users who want to back up their e-mail archives may have Rush Limbaugh to thank.

One month after the conservative radio talk show host publicly appealed for computer help to the Apple chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, his e-mails are now saving properly.

“I’m a big Mac guy,” Mr. Limbaugh told his listeners on Feb. 12, recalling the recent purchase of six maxed-out Macintosh computers. But he had struggled with two new features: Time Machine, which stores backup copies of files, and Back to My Mac, which enables remote computer access.

More important, Mr. Limbaugh’s e-mail messagess were not being archived properly, a problem that was echoed by other users on message boards. After asking Apple repeatedly for help by phone, Mr. Limbaugh decided to make his plea directly to Mr. Jobs by radio.

“I know we don’t agree on anything,” Mr. Limbaugh chuckled, referencing Mr. Jobs’s endorsement of Al Gore. But someone at Apple was apparently listening: the company assigned an engineer to work with Mr. Limbaugh.

After two weeks, the snag was sorted out. For the record: they deleted the null mail folder and rebuilt the application’s internal directory via a terminal command. (Yes, Mr. Limbaugh explained the details on the air.)

“I think it’s going to end up having to be a systemwide fix, which is good, because it’s been discovered,” Mr. Limbaugh said.

“Rush Limbaugh may not be Mac’s demographic, but he certainly could potentially influence the demo,” said Ken Baker, the executive news editor for E, the entertainment channel. “You’d rather have celebrities with you than against you.”

Perhaps the program patch will be nicknamed “Rush.”

re: #10 Bob in Breckenridge

PIMF Some

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

mmm...mmm...mmm Corned beef, cabbage, and a nice cold Guinness Draught. Life is good.

/burp

From Charle's link:

Why are “web standards” so frigging messed up?

So I may not understand all of it, but just like engineering standards, if due diligence and the proper validation is run, there shouldn't be that many problems.

Unless you try to flood the market to gather as many users as possible, especially right before the release of the competitor's product.

re: #12 Racer X

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

mmm...mmm...mmm Corned beef, cabbage, and a nice cold Guinness Draught. Life is good.

/burp

I'm sipping some Jameson's.

re: #13 lone_wolf_in_illinois

PIMF - Charles'

re: #16 song_and_dance_man

I got a 1/4 way through the article and gave up.

How 'bout a tune then?

re: #14 mama winger

Meee tooo! And trying to get my report finished before my meeting tomorrow. Jameson + procrastination + no idea of what the hell I am talking about = Coherent Report!

I tried to read the article and gave up--too much detail in trying to explain basic concepts. Bad tech writing.

re: #16 song_and_dance_man

I got a 1/4 way through the article and gave up.

Yup, I agree. I predict this will be a thread like a trickle in drought, will dry up real quick...

Now, if it was a boob thread...(sorry mama, and thanks for the hurrah)

re: #19 song_and_dance_man

Too early in the thread for that.

OK. I will pretend I understand what Charles is talking about until at least post 75. LOL!

re: #18 lone_wolf_in_illinois

Ha!

Now, if it was a boob thread...

Um, it's about web browsers. Of course it's a boob thread.

re: #14 mama winger

I'm sipping some Jameson's.

I'm jealous.

I could go for an Oban.

hahaha

If they had only listened to me...

If Apple had deep-sixed their elitist pricing in 1985, the whole world would be using Mac OS and some derivative of Mosaic.
Geeks often live in their own world, and Microsoft is a prime example. The rest of us want to turn on the comp and do useful things without having to have a high Geek Quotient (which I have, but hide to protect myself and the world at large).

re: #20 infidel Alan

I tried to read the article and gave up--too much detail in trying to explain basic concepts. Bad tech writing.

Actually I found it easy to follow and quite clear - but then I have 48 years of technical background as a starting point. :-) And I would have been lost without it as well.

I have found her, the Mother of all Geekwars!

I see some pictures of 1/4" jacks on that link. I wonder if it explains why the onboard audio for my new motherboard doesn't work right.

Geek-o-rama, 'The Big Bang Theory', was back on with a new show tonight.
I really like this show, it is very funny.

“If a sibling block box (that does not float and is not absolutely positioned) follows the run-in box, the run-in box becomes the first inline box of the block box. A run-in cannot run in to a block that already starts with a run-in or that itself is a run-in.”

hmmm.

re: #26 RedWhiteAndJew

I could go for an Oban.

RWJ- There's a great CD by Rik Emmett from Triumph and Alex Lifeson from Rush called "Beyond Borders". It's in the itunes store.

He lost me when he got to the Martian mp3 players.

Do you have to plug it in? Because I can do that.

re: #23 mama winger

mama- if i dont interrupt your plucking-may i ask you a vet question-if you want, i'll blue my nic

re: #33 jaunte

“If a sibling block box (that does not float and is not absolutely positioned) follows the run-in box, the run-in box becomes the first inline box of the block box. A run-in cannot run in to a block that already starts with a run-in or that itself is a run-in.”

hmmm.

Trust me ... it really does make sense to some of us.

Geekwar- a new video game - $39.95 at BestBuy!

re: #25 Racer X

I'm jealous.

I learned on the History Channel tonight that George Washington sent more troops in to squelch the Whiskey rebellion than he did for the Revolutionary War.

Gosh I love this country.

re: #38 Bobibutu

I'm glad of that.

re: #37 mikeymom

mama- if i dont interrupt your plucking-may i ask you a vet question-

Oh - YES! I saw your earlier post after you had left the thread. Ma Sands pointed it out to me. What's up?

Charles, This is a perfect case study for ingenuity, because undoubtedly all of this complexity is doomed to be replaced by something really simple.

Think of the early internal combustion engine/propeller airplanes. They grew in complexity until one day simpler and more powerful jet engines replaced them. Same for the wrist watch. They were once amazing tiny machines made by skilled craftsmen, and then all those intricate gears were replaced by cheaper, simpler and more accurate electronics. The trick isn't how do I make this machine I already have better, its how can I replace this machine with something completely different but can do the same things only better.

i blue my nic or should i say here?

re: #41 jaunte

I'm glad of that.

I have not laughed so hard for a while - thanks for the hmmm priceless!

re: #40 mama winger

I learned on the History Channel tonight that George Washington sent more troops in to squelch the Whiskey rebellion than he did for the Revolutionary War.

Gosh I love this country.

And General Grant was pissed when he heard that.

re: #44 mich-again
Fountain pen verus ballpoint.

re: #45 mikeymom

i blue my nic or should i say here?

Oh heck - I say post it here (if no one else minds). I can't understand this thread anyway. Does anyone here care? Speak up or forever hold your pieces!

in my little rave

Dude! {X} Orange Juice!

Actually everyone, if you read this article (or rant) in its entirety, you will come to understand that the Internet is going to implode at any second because you have a bazillion hermit code writers out there, in many different languages and no one wants to talk to each other. Wonder how long before some of them start dieing off?

uhh, gee, my Firefox 2 ALWAYS seems to work ok,, it's just so damd frustrating..

if your browser will tune in

then you're set.

re: #46 Bobibutu

I have not laughed so hard for a while - thanks for the hmmm priceless!

I'm still trying to figure out the 'not absolutely-positioned, but not floating, either' nature of the sibling block. It seems quasi-religious.

re: #47 Bob in Breckenridge


Grant was usually pissed. A very efficient drunk.

re: #44 mich-again

The basic problem here tho is not hardware - it is software of which there can be as many variations on theme as there are human minds - trying to get them all to be compatible would be like getting everyone who is stoned at a party to order the same type of pizza.

re: #55 Bobibutu

trying to get them all to be compatible would be like getting everyone who is stoned at a party to order the same type of pizza.

Stoned people will eat any kind of pizza. I know this.

re: #40 mama winger

I learned on the History Channel tonight that George Washington sent more troops in to squelch the Whiskey rebellion than he did for the Revolutionary War.

Gosh I love this country.

Shhh! I'm recording that show to watch later. I did watch the history of American beer though. Did you know - Jimmy Carter had a major accomplishment during his presidency? In 1974 he signed the law making it legal to brew your own beer.

ok- my 14 yr old pure bred maine coon-my mikey-history-hip dyspaxia-not too bad- eosinophilic plaque on upper lip-ongoing--has been off and on steroids-is good now for last yr--latest prob? he has been soaking litter box for 6 mon-has always been big water drinker-took him for tests 3 mon ago- diabeties not a factor-some crystals in urine-gave me something to sprinkle on food-forgetabout it--he saturates his pan in 4 days-always have used freh step-used to last 2 wks-now-4 days--wtf? should i be worried?

re: #55 Bobibutu

... would be like getting everyone who is stoned at a party to order the same type of pizza.

otoh, how may pizza eating stoners would actually know if they got the pizza they ordered?

re: #53 jaunte

I'm still trying to figure out the 'not absolutely-positioned, but not floating, either' nature of the sibling block. It seems quasi-religious.

You may enjoy quantum mechanics more.

And yes, it gets like trying to read one of Buckminister Fuller's long sentences and hold your train of thought while doing so to understand his point.

Jon Postel is fool and had less of an excuse than the author would have you believe. Any programmer who has spent a few years designing and coding software will immediately tell you that it is better for development software to break early, break often. Bjarne Stroupstrup in fact wrote about this in his book, "The C++ Programming Language", first edition early 80s.

It is true that the problem largely lies in the lack of reference implementation, because in this case the results are visual and few developers will agree with the look and feel of the reference implementation.

Still, the problem is I think too strongly stated, because a combination of techniques will mitigate large swaths of the problem. Everything conforms to a syntax validator. Look and feel conforms satisfactorily between top browsers, i.e., browsers are made to look and feel like each other in terms of layout, etc.

The point that following a spec can be painful is well taken. On the otherhand, engineers have been following specs since the beginning of engineering, and have done so successfully for much of the time. Our 747's fly with a very good track record. Our MRI machines never, IIRC, fry patients. The F-22 Raptor corners on a dime.

There is a part of me that thinks there is too much whining in the software world.

re: #57 Racer X

I learned something way cooler. (SPOILER ALERT)

I learned that the Jack Daniels operation in Tennessee bought its land and the beginnings of its still-works from a Lutheran minister.

I LOVE being Lutheran! And what a country!

re: #57 Racer X

oops - 1978

re: #56 Mich-again

Stoned people will eat any kind of pizza. I know this.

Eat yes - once it is delivered - I was referring to getting everyone to agree at the same time as what to order.

The gostack distims the doshes. Doshes are distimed by gostacks. Distiming is what is done to doshes by gostacks. Doshes get distimed by doshes. Distiming is done to doshes by gostacks. Gostacks act upon doshes by distiming them.

re: #58 mikeymom

should i be worried?

short answer - yes.

I would get him into your vet for a follow-up fairly soon. Crystals are nothing to mess around with in a cat of that age. I'm not a vet, so I don't want to give you any medical advice, but if it were my cat I would definitely get him in. Keep me posted, okay? I want to know what they say about him.

It would seem to be impossible to be too negative in regard to IE8.

re: #66 mama winger

they did x-rays at the time, but mike had a full colon-lo and they couldnt see all of bladder. they gave me the stuff to sprinkle on food-he starved for 5 days-finally hubby said-enough-let him eat! how can crytals block him when he pees so much? im confused

re: #61 Globular Cluster

Jon Postel is fool and had less of an excuse than the author would have you believe. Any programmer who has spent a few years designing and coding software will immediately tell you that it is better for development software to break early, break often. Bjarne Stroupstrup in fact wrote about this in his book, "The C++ Programming Language", first edition early 80s.

To add: The whole purpose of a so-called "Strongly-Typed Language", which C++ is, is to enforce the catching of potential bugs through type mismatches. For example, a compiler might complain when you attempt to innocuously pass an int to a long, because a future programmer might think the initial function could handle larger numbers, and then pass a long to that function. This is part and parcel of the "break early" principle. One goal of C++ is to prevent bugs at compile time.

re: #64 Bobibutu

I was referring to getting everyone to agree at the same time as what to order.

True. But you have to be a pizza tyrant and just order for them.

re: #70 Mich-again

ancovies,onions and garlic

re: #70 Mich-again

True. But you have to be a pizza tyrant and just order for them.

Well - we'll see if MS will be accepted as the pizza tyrant this go round. ;-)

re: #68 mikeymom

re: #68 mikeymom

Crystals form when a cat cannot process elements in the food you are feeding him. This can lead to all kinds of bladder and kidney problems. Male cats especially, male cats that are older, especially especially. :)

He needs to get checked out.

ancovies,onions and garlic

Mmm. That sounds good. Seriously.

Ever try Marmite on pizza? Yummo.

re: #73 mama winger

For animal lovers - google BARF diet - learn about it and then let your conscience be your guide. Your vet bills will plummet.

re: #73 mama winger

ok mama- i will call in the am- thanks--im scared now cause i didnt follow thru- he seems ok- but then-cats are so stoic-he has been constipated too-he is our love-is now cuddled wiht mikedad on bed-doesent seem sick at all-

re: #74 RedWhiteAndJew

you just crossed the line

re: #76 mikeymom

Pets really ARE stoic - that's what makes it so hard to tell when they are sick, until they are really sick. It's a frustration, trying to figure out what's wrong when they can't tell you. You feel so bad for them...

re: #78 mama winger

after i had mike to the vet in dec--hubby was saying--mikes ok-you are just being drama queen-mikes fine--thanks so much mama-will call my vet in am i trust him alot-mikey is 14 1/2- i want him for another 3 or 4-thx again-so much

#77 mikeymom

Oh, I'm just getting warmed up!

Kim Chee and Pickled Herring...it's almost a religious experience.

re: #79 mikeymom

Let me know what your vet says! I'll say a little prayer for your kitty.

re: #80 RedWhiteAndJew

OMG--are we related? i get a jar of kim chee once a year--hubby freaks! piclked herring in cream sauce--forgetaboutit! love it! yet--he would garlic on oatmeal---my fav is now out of business-eggplant rolettes-pickled eggplant slices w/breadcrumb filling--company doesnt make them-we have the last 6 jars

re: #81 mama winger

thank you so much for your time and advice-lizards are the best ,huh? i keep all in my prayers too-little winger sounds cute

The web standards camp seems kind of Trotskyist. You’d think they’re the left wing, but if you happened to make a website that claims to conform to web standards but doesn’t, the idealists turn into Joe Arpaio, America’s Toughest Sheriff. “YOU MADE A MISTAKE AND YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BREAK. I don’t care if 80% of your websites stop working. I’ll put you all in jail, where you will wear pink pajamas and eat 15 cent sandwiches and work on a chain gang. And I don’t care if the whole county is in jail. The law is the law.”

First they bitched when MS released IE7 and when Microsoft mended their ways with IE8 (and came much closer to "doing the right thing"), the same people bitched again.
What else can I say other than 'be careful of what you wish for...'
:)

eggplant rolettes-pickled eggplant slices w/breadcrumb filling

Ooh. That sounds yummy. Like Eggplant Parmigian turned inside-out.

re: #85 RedWhiteAndJew

but--no--no sauce- packed in oil- hubby is a great chef-we are going to try to recreate them-lolhubby actually was in touch w/ceo of company that made them!

I roomed with Theodore Nelson's brother, and both read his "Computer Lib" (Down with the Computer Priesthood!) and spoke with him on several occasions...
Ted coined the term 'hypertext', and had some radical ideas about getting Power (of computing) TO The People (back in 1977 or so...)

If you had told Postel that there would be 90 million untrained people, not engineers, creating web sites, and they would be doing all kinds of awful things, and some kind of misguided charity would have caused the early browser makers to accept these errors and display the page anyway, he would have understood that this is the wrong principle, and that, actually, the web standards idealists are right, and the way the web “should have” been built would be to have very, very strict standards and every web browser should be positively obnoxious about pointing them all out to you and web developers that couldn’t figure out how to be “conservative in what they emit” should not be allowed to author pages that appear anywhere until they get their act together.

(my emphasis)
Priesthoods, while often guilty of abominations against creative or ignorant people, usually also performed SERIOUS, valuable work in coercing disciplined conformance to Standards-That-Worked...

...a discipline that, NOW, must be voluntarily assumed and practiced by '90 million ... people'

Dang! Forgot Ted's linkie

This reminds me of when a computer programmer caused a tourist plane in Antartica to crash, killing everyone on board.

He'd made a tiny route change, using the original program specs. His update did a tiny correction. In the lab, the plane moved over a little but was still over a flat surface, but on the plane, the route had already been hacked. His little change updated the hack. This new route directed the plane straight into a mountain. It was a foggy day. Boom.

Thanks Charles---I'm not a geek and didn't understand all of it--but it was explained well enough that I know I will not upgrade---and I understand a bit better why Vista does not work like it should. I am one of those dis grunted VISTA owners--went from ME to Vista---and I HATE IT and I have told them so. AND I AM VERY HAPPY TO FIND OUT THAT THE EXECUTIVES HAD PROBLEMS ALSO---IMPO they should have to pay to have XP put on all computers with VISTA till they work out the problems.

re: #86 mikeymom

mama winger asked me to watch out for you --to let you know she's seeking to meet up with you, on your pet question... :)

She was on the top-most thread, a moment ago...

re: #81 mama winger

Let me know what your vet says! I'll say a little prayer for your kitty.

Can I ask a Q now about pet?

re: #90 Inquisitive

Thanks Charles---I'm not a geek and didn't understand all of it--but it was explained well enough that I know I will not upgrade---and I understand a bit better why Vista does not work like it should. I am one of those dis grunted VISTA owners--went from ME to Vista---and I HATE IT and I have told them so. AND I AM VERY HAPPY TO FIND OUT THAT THE EXECUTIVES HAD PROBLEMS ALSO---IMPO they should have to pay to have XP put on all computers with VISTA till they work out the problems.

I like my Vista, but I bought it with a whole new sys - it's the upgrades that are killer.

Joel is cool. I believe he tilts lefty, but nonetheless...

A browser and a DNC flame war happening at the same time! This is going to be a great year! I'm gonna have to buy more popcorn.

Thanks for linking to the article Charles. I'm printing it out so I can give it a good read, but it looks like a great article.

re: #93 Cattt

I like my Vista, but I bought it with a whole new sys - it's the upgrades that are killer.

Mine came with whole new system also---but I still HATE IT--could not install software that I had been using and needed to use on new PC--also have found that some sites that I use to go to I cannot go to now---Had to call company almost every time I logged on the first 4 months--lots of problems---I ended up using my older PC for all the things I wanted/needed to do on newer one. I knew older PC was not going to last much sooner and wanted to get newer one and make changes before it did(which it did last month) now I am having to put out money for newer versions of software I need so I can put it on newer PC---I can't even use the game software I have for my granchildren.

I don't understand any of it. It's all geek to me.

I'll stick with Firefox, thanks. I just converted to Linux a couple of months ago and, while not a complete geek (yet), this system makes me want to become one. Too cool! Once everything works, it stays working!

re: #75 Bobibutu

For animal lovers - google BARF diet - learn about it and then let your conscience be your guide. Your vet bills will plummet.

Amen! I was about to mention rawfeeding myself. Cats cannot thrive on dry kibble. It hurts to see so many cats fed that.

re: #96 Inquisitive

Mine came with whole new system also---but I still HATE IT--could not install software that I had been using and needed to use on new PC--also have found that some sites that I use to go to I cannot go to now---Had to call company almost every time I logged on the first 4 months--lots of problems---I ended up using my older PC for all the things I wanted/needed to do on newer one. I knew older PC was not going to last much sooner and wanted to get newer one and make changes before it did(which it did last month) now I am having to put out money for newer versions of software I need so I can put it on newer PC---I can't even use the game software I have for my granchildren.

Goodness. I don't have any trouble with Vista at all. I have used everything I ever used on it and its fine.

I'm about half way through and just soaking it up. This is a great article. He is laying down some truth here, plain and simple.

There is a problem. It's been around for years. All sides go nutzo over it. It is no one person's or company's fault (but W3C should have come up with a reference implementation). There is no good solution.

DOCTYPE is a myth.

Ain't that the truth.

Man. A world where ECMAscript and the DOM were implemented correctly. Where CSS just worked the way it's supposed to. A world without hacks. What a world that would be.

I hope the IE team doesn't back down or that they find a workaround and get compliant (or at least a compliant as possible). Of course, it breaks the crap out of LGF, but sacrifices have to be made.

Ok. I understood the article and I thought it was funny and informative. Ergo sum geek.

The fact that BillCo. is now saying that they're going to comply after years of noncompliance is a Kerryesque flipflop. They didn't give much of a crap when they were pounding Netscape into the dirt. IE5 had so much stupid nonsense about it (page filters, anyone?) I'm glad it died with the advent of FF/Opera and the other nextgen browsers that quickly unseated IE.

The IE team has to walk a fine line between tight support for W3C standards

That's nice.. Microsoft's noncompliance of W3C specs (BTW, Microsoft sits on the W3C) from IE4 until today is why they have so much trouble now anyway. It's their own damn fault.

As a web developer who has been responsible for putting up "noncompliant" pages back in, uh, 1997, all I can say is that people lease cars for less time than they go between site upgrades. Tables bad, CSS good? Wonderful. Hire someone who can actually make that happen for you, and stop complaining that the faboo web site your nephew build for you when he was in high school doesn't work properly on a browser in 2008 after he's married with two kids. Maybe you can get him to put some Web 2.0 into your site now, too.

Is IE8 HTML 5 compliant? I didn't see that in the article.. Or is that the new standard that Microsoft is going to have to "interpret" ?

re: #43 song_and_dance_man

I decided to wade through the article again.

Microsoft intends to code IE8 to conform to Web standards when there are no standards. Each browser has it's own standards mode that works to display the billions of web pages.

You're mostly right - the big problem is that there ARE standards. Firefox and Safari are probably the closest to true standard, and IE does its own thing basically. I develop sites, and like Charles have had to tear my hair out trying to get IE to do simple things correctly. So that means hacks, separate styles for IE, etc. I have a computer with IE6 on one and IE7 on the other, and I'm always flipping back and forth to see who broke what. Not fun or pretty.

The article is saying that the challenge now is to decide whether to make IE8 totally conform to standard, which means that pages that are hacked or made in FrontPage or generally designed to conform to early IE or even IE7 will not display properly. And then the next issue is who's at fault? Is it IE for making a standards-compliant browser? Or is it the developer's fault for trying to make stuff work and not being able to make it forward compliant? And by fault, I mean the end user - which judging by the comments here don't give a rip about standards or doctype or whatever, just make my page work ya capeesh?

What I've started to do is use conditional statements and have a separate style for IE, so that I can just remove the style without recoding everything. Hopefully IE8 will be more like FF and others and my job will be easier!

*I just reread my post and it's kinda boring even to me* haha

That Article: "Poor Microsoft...its just tooo hard for them"

ME: Funny...the Firefox, and Safari teams have no problem.

Thank you, I'll stick with Firefox or Flock.

Lotus Notes network run by AT&T was worth the read. I am the most annoying of developers/users...a standards idealist until it affects me or has my customers yelling at me. The article made me pine for COBOL II.

This just in:

Nikola Telsa and Thomas Edison go to war over which method to use to generate electricity; Alternating current or Direct current. Litigation seems certain to follow, with millions in share holder value at risk.

Everything old is new again, if you live long enough, or have any memory.

Stupid article, false premise.

The writer actually tries to make the argument that ONLY NOW, around about the time IE8 is in beta testing, that those crazy "idealists" want IE 8 to be standards compliant.

Utter Rubbish.

As another poster has stated, the W3C standards have been around for YEARS. (over a decade now, I think. At least since the days of IE 4 and Windows 95) and Microsoft has had a seat ON THE STANDARDS BOARD for almost that entire time. They could have started properly implementing the standards WAY BACK when the Internet as we know it today was in it's infancy. But no, they wanted Hegemony over the Dekstop, and to them, that included the Browser. (Being that BG has generally held a web-centric view of the future of the desktop since around the late 80's. He wasn't entirely wrong either.)

So rather than conform to standards way back then, Microsoft decided to stomp the other major web player at the time, Netscape (which WAS standards compliant at the time) into the ground. Once that was complete, did they return to the standards? Nope. They just ignored the standards altogether, and improvements basically stalled at IE5 for YEARS (Win98, 98SE and ME). Eventually they moved to IE6, and then stayed there for YEARS (Win2K, WinXP-SP1). it wasn't until the rise of the STANDARDS COMPLIANT Firefox that they were forced to come out with IE7, and even THAT was only a minimal nod to the standards.

So now, after over a decade of crapping on the standards and all over their own "house" with rotten browsers that just did whatever the hell Microsoft wanted them too, they are discovering that they have a big mess to clean up.

Well Boo-frickin'-hoo! You morons shouldn't have ignored the standards OVER A DECADE AGO. It's just too damn bad that you have to deal with a big ugly mess, but you are the ones that made this bed, you can lie in it.

The worst part about the article, is that this moron actually tries to put forth the argument that STANDARDS ARE BAD! Yeah, right. Those mean old standards are getting in the way of us just doing whatever the hell we want, so let's just trash them. Despite us having ignored them for years while we messed everything up, let's just do what we want, and hang the rules. Idiot.

The very best thing that can happen is if the "idealists" win out. Yes, Microsoft will have to endure some pain, but that is just the price they must pay for breaking the rules for so long. They need to get compliant with the standards, not just for their browser, but for their OS too. In the meantime they will probably lose their monopoly grip on the desktop, but solid competition makes for a leaner and better product, and a leaner and better company. So in the end it will help Microsoft.

People will get used to living within the standards. There will be pain during the transition, but it MUST happen if we are to move forward.

re: #13 lone_wolf_in_illinois

So I may not understand all of it, but just like engineering standards, if due diligence and the proper validation is run, there shouldn't be that many problems.

Ya'all need to read this on 'social informatics' which basically states that whenever you mix people and technology, no matter what you do or how careful you are, unpredictable sh** happens. And it's usually bad unpredictable sh**.

Quantum makes more sense than Microsoft's wars with their customers.

Even my wife now notices that pages look the same in Firefox and Opera, and different (and much slower) in IE6 and IE7.

Standards aren't.

If anyone is still reading this thread I'll say this: I'm pretty damn impressed with MS over the last year. The ability to DL express versions of sql 2005, C++, C# and VB for free, along with the .net framework is pretty sweet.

I do a lot of on the fly scripting at work and autoit + vbscript + the free express versions of C++ and C# + office 2007 make me appear as a god to those that don't know better :P

I have to say I love the advances microsoft has made over the last 5 years. fook apple and their $4k computers. This crap is free.