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From: Tim Cook
Subject: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 02:39:56
Message: <49c33a3c$1@news.povray.org>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031904339.html

"Blarrrrrgh, MS sucks!  IE sucks and all improvements are just playing 
catch-up to other browsers!"
"Uh, IE8 loads pages faster than Firefox."
"It doesn't matter, it's not *that* much faster, and besides, everyone has 
broadband now so nobody cares!  Rewrrrrr."

MS just can't win, can it...

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 03:18:13
Message: <49c34335@news.povray.org>
Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031904339.html

> "Blarrrrrgh, MS sucks!  IE sucks and all improvements are just playing 
> catch-up to other browsers!"
> "Uh, IE8 loads pages faster than Firefox."
> "It doesn't matter, it's not *that* much faster, and besides, everyone has 
> broadband now so nobody cares!  Rewrrrrr."

> MS just can't win, can it...

  Hmm, where did you read that kind of text? Not in the article you
linked to, at least.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Jim Holsenback
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 10:07:50
Message: <49c3a336$1@news.povray.org>
"Tim Cook" <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
news:49c33a3c$1@news.povray.org...
>  besides, everyone has
> broadband now so nobody cares!  Rewrrrrr."

not entirely true .... haven't been able to con them into runnig a line to
my place yet. I've been trying for the past 4 years .... they just laugh at
me! currently connected at 45.2kbps :-(


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From: Tim Cook
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 14:28:45
Message: <49c3e05d$1@news.povray.org>
"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>  Hmm, where did you read that kind of text? Not in the article you
> linked to, at least.

Well, the first sentence wasn't in the article, but a general summing up of 
popular anti-MS attitudes (and another article I say about how IE8 is just 
playing catch-up with everyone else).

The whole article is going on about 'well, ok, IE8 is a teeny bit faster 
loading pages than Firefox', then the last paragraph says "In practical, 
everyday use, you likely won't notice much of a difference between IE 8 and 
Firefox 3. Due to the fact that broadband connections are so commonplace 
today, and the fact that browsers in general can load pages faster than they 
could even a couple years ago, the page load time differences between the 
two are relatively moot."

Basically, it grudgingly admits that IE8 is a little bit better in a 
particular aspect, then dismissing it as irrelevant, where with any other 
browser, any speed increase would be trumpeted as the greatest thing since 
sliced breat (especially if it were for a Mac).

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 14:40:56
Message: <49c3e338$1@news.povray.org>
Tim Cook wrote:
> other browser, any speed increase would be trumpeted as the greatest 
> thing since sliced breat (especially if it were for a Mac).

Usually the articles about something are pretty well-balanced[1], and it's 
the comment threads that do the flaming and bashing. :-)

[1] Unless it's an MSDN blog or "Linux Today" magazine or some such. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."


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From: nemesis
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 14:57:54
Message: <49c3e732@news.povray.org>
Here at work everybody is fed up with Vista by its own "merits".  I 
didn't even need to advocate Linux. :)

6 years in the making for a horrid tragedy as far as TI infrastructure 
go.  Yesterday a guy was installing printer drivers in the machines.  It 
got installed in 3 and then stopped going on, he simply wasn't able to 
continue the installation.  I don't know the details, still just one of 
lots of inexplicable issues with a hurried migration where someone 
probably received some good amount...

Many problems seem to be related to nationality settings.  Even though 
it's set to pt-br here, many apps seem to prefer the english language or 
something with mixed results.  For instance, IE7 doesn't seem to find 
some documents when opening them:  I go through the file dialog, select 
the document and it gives a message that d:\users\foo\img.png doesn't 
exist.  In pt-br that path is written differently as 
d:\Usuarios\foo\img.png.  I think that lies the problem.  Yes, they 
actually gone insane on the translations and I guess it frakked up the 
system.  Oh, they do also translate the Excel functions, sum -> soma etc...

Sadly, they are on the hope that Windows 7 will fix everything.  On a 
side note, open-source advocating has never been stronger here and 
several tools are being seriously considered to replace the eternal 
cycle of forced upgrades.  There are people analyzing substitutes for 
Visual Studio (the Express version don't cut it, but it seems 
SharpDevelop will get a green light) and Java presence is getting 
stronger (sadly).

IE8 is a lot better than IE ever was, even standards compliant (which is 
really more important than being zippy).  It's too late, too little, 
though...


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 15:17:22
Message: <49c3ebc1@news.povray.org>
Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> The whole article is going on about 'well, ok, IE8 is a teeny bit faster 
> loading pages than Firefox', then the last paragraph says "In practical, 
> everyday use, you likely won't notice much of a difference between IE 8 and 
> Firefox 3. Due to the fact that broadband connections are so commonplace 
> today, and the fact that browsers in general can load pages faster than they 
> could even a couple years ago, the page load time differences between the 
> two are relatively moot."

> Basically, it grudgingly admits that IE8 is a little bit better in a 
> particular aspect, then dismissing it as irrelevant, where with any other 
> browser, any speed increase would be trumpeted as the greatest thing since 
> sliced breat (especially if it were for a Mac).

  Seriously though, IMO speed is certainly not the main issue with web
browsers. Security, stability and implementation of standards is. Whether
the browser can display a huge page in 2 or 3 seconds is not all that
relevant compared.

  IE has a very sad history in this regard. While maybe not the absolute
first, it nevertheless basically defined the whole concept of insecure
web browsing (in other words, simply going to a web page could get your
computer infected with a trojan, virus, adware or other malware, without
you even having to do anything special).

  Some argue that IE is not the only browser which has suffered from such
security holes. However, the main issue that IE hasn't had one or two such
issues. It has had a myriad of them during its 10+ year history. No year
has gone by without at least a half dozen serious security flaws having
been found (often after it has been too late). While other browser have
not been completely free from security holes, their overall history has
usually been much cleaner, with far, far fewer flaws, compared.

  The reason for this can arguably be said to be that other (modern)
browsers were designed to be secure from the start, while IE was not.
IE was never even designed to be secure, and security measures were only
kludged afterwards on top of the old code. It has not been until very
recently that MS redesigned IE from scratch to correct this. (And even
then the end result has been somewhat dubious, with all the backwards
compatibility with ActiveX and such crap, which is only begging for
security holes, no matter how much you try to avoid them.)

  The other sad history of IE is that MS has never cared about established
web standards and invented their own, as usual. Also some design principles
in IE have in the past made very hard to make complex web pages which are
fully compatible with IE and other more standard-compliant browsers at the
same time. (It's not like Netscape is completely innocent of this either,
but at least Netscape is practically dead, while IE isn't.)

  Also IE became really infamous for dragging behind in implementing the
latest standards for years and years, leaving their "customers" with little
to no support for them. This seriously hurt the advances in web technologies
for many years.

  Again, it hasn't been but very recently that MS has swallowed its pride
and actually started to try to implement all the standards that other
browsers have implemented for over half decade. And this was only because
other browsers started to get scaringly popular.

  It's no wonder that many people feel that this is "too little, too late".
IE has already get a bad reputation of being insecure and lacking in
standard-compliance. A new-and-better version is not going to clean this
reputation overnight. IE loading a page in 2 seconds while Firefox loads
it in 3 is certainly not enough to clean its history and reputation.

  Thus "the page load time differences between the two are relatively moot"
is spot-on. It's really not an issue of speed. It's an issue of trust.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 15:47:44
Message: <49c3f2e0@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
> Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> The whole article is going on about 'well, ok, IE8 is a teeny bit faster 
>> loading pages than Firefox', then the last paragraph says "In practical, 
>> everyday use, you likely won't notice much of a difference between IE 8 and 
>> Firefox 3. Due to the fact that broadband connections are so commonplace 
>> today, and the fact that browsers in general can load pages faster than they 
>> could even a couple years ago, the page load time differences between the 
>> two are relatively moot."
> 
>> Basically, it grudgingly admits that IE8 is a little bit better in a 
>> particular aspect, then dismissing it as irrelevant, where with any other 
>> browser, any speed increase would be trumpeted as the greatest thing since 
>> sliced breat (especially if it were for a Mac).
> 
>   Seriously though, IMO speed is certainly not the main issue with web
> browsers. Security, stability and implementation of standards is. Whether
> the browser can display a huge page in 2 or 3 seconds is not all that
> relevant compared.
> 
>   IE has a very sad history in this regard. While maybe not the absolute
> first, it nevertheless basically defined the whole concept of insecure
> web browsing (in other words, simply going to a web page could get your
> computer infected with a trojan, virus, adware or other malware, without
> you even having to do anything special).
> 
>   Some argue that IE is not the only browser which has suffered from such
> security holes. However, the main issue that IE hasn't had one or two such
> issues. It has had a myriad of them during its 10+ year history. No year
> has gone by without at least a half dozen serious security flaws having
> been found (often after it has been too late). While other browser have
> not been completely free from security holes, their overall history has
> usually been much cleaner, with far, far fewer flaws, compared.
> 
>   The reason for this can arguably be said to be that other (modern)
> browsers were designed to be secure from the start, while IE was not.
> IE was never even designed to be secure, and security measures were only
> kludged afterwards on top of the old code. It has not been until very
> recently that MS redesigned IE from scratch to correct this. (And even
> then the end result has been somewhat dubious, with all the backwards
> compatibility with ActiveX and such crap, which is only begging for
> security holes, no matter how much you try to avoid them.)
> 
>   The other sad history of IE is that MS has never cared about established
> web standards and invented their own, as usual. Also some design principles
> in IE have in the past made very hard to make complex web pages which are
> fully compatible with IE and other more standard-compliant browsers at the
> same time. (It's not like Netscape is completely innocent of this either,
> but at least Netscape is practically dead, while IE isn't.)
> 
>   Also IE became really infamous for dragging behind in implementing the
> latest standards for years and years, leaving their "customers" with little
> to no support for them. This seriously hurt the advances in web technologies
> for many years.
> 
>   Again, it hasn't been but very recently that MS has swallowed its pride
> and actually started to try to implement all the standards that other
> browsers have implemented for over half decade. And this was only because
> other browsers started to get scaringly popular.
> 
>   It's no wonder that many people feel that this is "too little, too late".
> IE has already get a bad reputation of being insecure and lacking in
> standard-compliance. A new-and-better version is not going to clean this
> reputation overnight. IE loading a page in 2 seconds while Firefox loads
> it in 3 is certainly not enough to clean its history and reputation.
> 
>   Thus "the page load time differences between the two are relatively moot"
> is spot-on. It's really not an issue of speed. It's an issue of trust.
> 

And, of course, one key issue here is that, since IE, even 8, is tied 
into the OS on some level, and even basic stuff like their folder 
browsing uses it, there hasn't been a version of it *ever*, even now in 
XP, Vista, or 7, where something crashing IE doesn't at least "risk" 
rendering the OS itself unstable. Yes, its gotten better. And, here is 
the joke. Something like the Eee PC uses Firefox, or something, as its 
"desktop" as the default. Crash Firefox and... it doesn't take down the 
OS. The only serious problem I had with it was with the 4GB setup, 
installing patches, then having no room to write back the "settings". 
I.e., it mangled them during shut down, so wouldn't boot again, without 
fixing it. Not a problem with the browser, just not enough space for the 
configuration to be saved.

Yeah, winning in this situation is going to require that they prove they 
are willing to strive to produce the best, not just the *most used*, and 
give a frack about the standards. Their entire reaction so far has been, 
"Lets catch up, so we are most used again.", but its hardly clear they 
have otherwise even attempted to reform.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>


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From: Mike Hough
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 20 Mar 2009 17:40:25
Message: <49c40d49$1@news.povray.org>
So people should accept IE based on its merits? That is definitely a new 
concept for MS but I plan to stick with Firefox.


"Tim Cook" <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:49c33a3c$1@news.povray.org...
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031904339.html
>
> "Blarrrrrgh, MS sucks!  IE sucks and all improvements are just playing 
> catch-up to other browsers!"
> "Uh, IE8 loads pages faster than Firefox."
> "It doesn't matter, it's not *that* much faster, and besides, everyone has 
> broadband now so nobody cares!  Rewrrrrr."
>
> MS just can't win, can it...
>
> -- 
> Tim Cook
> http://empyrean.freesitespace.net


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: No-win situation?
Date: 21 Mar 2009 00:23:02
Message: <49c46ba6$1@news.povray.org>
On 3/20/2009 11:28 AM, Tim Cook wrote:
> Basically, it grudgingly admits that IE8 is a little bit better in a
> particular aspect, then dismissing it as irrelevant, where with any
> other browser, any speed increase would be trumpeted as the greatest
> thing since sliced breat (especially if it were for a Mac).

It IS irrelevant.

7 years ago, I switched to Opera because it was "the fastest browser on 
the web."  Back then, that really meant something.

Today, though, I don't give a flying lip lock on a horse's dong whether 
one browser is a fraction of a second faster than another.  Computers in 
general have gotten so fast that it's a (mostly) solved problem.

IE8 trying to claim superiority because it's faster than the competition 
is like those graphics cards that have 10 bits per channel instead of 8. 
  While there's no denying that it's better, most would be hard pressed 
to justify the cost.  Now, 32bit floats for every channel are so 
dramatically better, that it makes a difference.  In the same sense, if 
IE8 rendered pages in a fraction of a second, rather than merely a 
fraction of a second faster, it would be something to crow about.

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com


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