No More IE for Mac

[MacRumors]

MacUser.co.uk (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=43191) reports that Microsoft will no longer be developing Internet Explorer for the Mac:

Roz Ho, the general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, has confirmed that no future versions of Internet Explorer will be released for the Mac.

Speculation of the same emerged after Microsoft's announcement (http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1012943.html) that no more standalone version of Internet Explorer would be released for Windows.

[nickgold]

Thank freaking god...

[Kid Red]

Feel bad for all those IE lovers out there. Nice to see that after IE dominated netscape in part because of M$'s tatics over the years, that Apple can effectively dominate IE in a matter of months.

I would be nervous if Apple wasn't hell bent on every site working with Safari. We all know how incompetent web designers and coders only code for IE windows.

[g4pismo]

don't let the door hit ya! :-)

[Gymnut]

Good riddance. It was really starting to show its age. C'mon where the hell is the freakin pop-up blockers??

[blueBomber]

greeeaaat.... looks like MS is screwing over windows users as well as the mac peeps. When will it stop?!?:rolleyes:

[macquariumguy]

How long has it been since the current version was updated, anyway?

No big loss, says I.

[jyvin]

Who uses IE anyway?

[chanoc]

With Safari, OmniWeb, Camino, and Mozilla, who needs IE? I do not use IE anymore, and have deleted it from my system. I monitored it in the Terminal, and it was a 'CPU hog'.:D

[redAPPLE]

well... ok then, micro$oft.

[the_wallcrawler]

eh, i dont really care. ie isnt my browser of choice anyway. long live safari!

[barkmonster]

DIE bug ridden scum!!!

:D

[bdkennedy1]

Boo hoo.

[jacg]

I still have to use IE for certain sites. Will IE fall behind even further as the Mac OS evolves? Can we assume that Safari will eventually work everywhere and do everything that IE can (except quicker)?

[RHutch]

Maybe this will make web designers realize that they should stop coding specifically for IE.

[Trimix]

I am still using IE, but just because I am waiting for the new powermac and then I will upgrade EVERYTHING in one swift move YEAH BABY YEAH
Out goes IE in comes SAFARI - I have read so much about it anyway.
I will not miss IE, it is the only thing that from time to time crashes on my i-mac.
Foxtrott Oscar Micro$oft.

[psxndc]

While I too loathe IE and scold my fiancee when she uses it (for everything), from someone that works at a web development company, this is an issue. "IE for the Mac" has some weight behind it when we try to design pages. We don't code to it, we just make sure the sites we develop work in it. 90% of the people here aren't macheads so if I turn around tomorrow and say "you need to test on Safari and Camino now", people will just look at me like I have three heads. I wonder where this will lead in terms of site testing/browser consideration...

-P

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by jacg
I still have to use IE for certain sites. Will IE fall behind even further as the Mac OS evolves? Can we assume that Safari will eventually work everywhere and do everything that IE can (except quicker)?
What sites? What other browsers have you tried? Safari is not the only alternative.

[Fredo Viola]

Good ridance!

[kingslod]

Competition in the marketplace is a good thing, though. I hope Apple doesn't sit on its laurels knowing it's the only real game in town. Apologies to all the little browsers out there....

I'm also thinking that this will continue/enhance the "divide" between Mac and PC users. I can here them now, "and the mac doesn't even have Internet Explorer." :mad:

Oh, well.

[RHutch]

Originally posted by psxndc
While I too loathe IE and scold my fiancee when she uses it (for everything), from someone that works at a web development company, this is an issue. "IE for the Mac" has some weight behind it when we try to design pages. We don't code to it, we just make sure the sites we develop work in it. 90% of the people here aren't macheads so if I turn around tomorrow and say "you need to test on Safari and Camino now", people will just look at me like I have three heads. I wonder where this will lead in terms of site testing/browser consideration...

-P

Web designing is not my job, but when I read basic books on building web pages, they all said to test with different browsers to make sure that things would look correct as often as possible. I thought that professionals should test with different browsers too. This says so much about M$'s control in this area.

[Freg3000]

I thought that IE 6 was already far in development......

Oh well, I really don't care-it's Safari 100% for me!

[pbrennen]

Originally posted by psxndc
90% of the people here aren't macheads so if I turn around tomorrow and say "you need to test on Safari and Camino now", people will just look at me like I have three heads. I wonder where this will lead in terms of site testing/browser consideration...

-P

This will be great. Forced support of browsers superior to IE or loss of the Mac community are the choices here. I think sites will opt not to lose users on Macs.

[bretm]

Ironic, but even attachments in hotmail don't seem to want to work.

CreativeCow.net has it's issues.

My banking doesn't work in safari either.

Fix those three and I'll be happy. But without a bigger market share, it's going to be hard to get places like banking to give a dang about whether their system works on the few macs out there.

it'll be up to apple to code safari to work correctly with all the IE idiosyncrasies sadly. Even more so when an update to the os makes IE not work at all.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by pbrennen
This will be great. Forced support of browsers superior to IE or loss of the Mac community are the choices here. I think sites will opt not to lose users on Macs.
I don't. Remember (apparently) 95% of the world comps run a version of Windows, and so have IE. I hardly think any web developers with sites built and optimized for IE (you can do some cool stuff in it) will worry about loosing a 5% audience.

[nookster]

As long as Apple can get Safari to play nice with my Bank, then I can dump IE and free my dock of another icon.

[FriarTuck]

I know we all have problems with M$, but I think it's reasonable to see in the course of history in this matter a hint that our friends in the MBU at M$ gave Apple a big heads-up that this was coming and gave Apple plenty of time to develop their own product before the IE cancellation was announced.

Can you imagine the volume of the "Apple is Dead" crowd if the end of development IE for Mac had been announced before Safari was introduced? Apple's stock would have dropped 10 percent in a day.

The folks who put together IE for Mac have done what they could under the conditions. Remember how special we felt when we could change the color of our IE color scheme to match our iMac color?

Hate M$, but don't hide all your love from the MBU folks. They probably saved Apple's butt with a heads-up on this one.

[vniow]

Originally posted by Freg3000
I thought that IE 6 was already far in development......


I was under the impression that MSN for OSX used IE 6, may be wrong though...

[DGFan]

A lot of software comes with HTML help files that open in IE by default (regardless of the system preference). What will happen if I delete IE? Will those files fail to open or will they try my default browser because IE wasn't found?

[coolfactor]

Microsoft may be abandoning IE because now they can build a brand new browser and do only half the work. Apple will be bundling WebCore.framework into the OS so any browser will be able to use it. I have a strange feeling we haven't looked at all possibilities. Microsoft has the resources to throw together a new browser from scratch and compete head-to-head with Safari. However, personally, I doubt this will happen.

P.S. those of you using v74, can you log into Hotmail? I used to be able to to, but v74 doesn't seem to let me.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by coolfactor
P.S. those of you using v74, can you log into Hotmail? I used to be able to to, but v74 doesn't seem to let me.
I'm on v74 and have no problem with Hotmail what-so-ever.

[iJon]

no one will switch to apple for safari so i think apple should go ahead and release safari for windows, really steal some thunder. the only problem that could arouse from that is if microsoft stopped office, which would stop apple in its place, lose lots of business sales and potentially many consumer sales.

iJon

[Steamboatwillie]

Oh my my my,

The poor souls stuck in windows are losing thier snake oil. In the days before I used Macs the general fix-all in Windows was to re-install Internet Explorer. I know it sounds weird but indeed it does (temporarily) fix many-o-problems.

I think I have used IE once in OSX and it was most likely a mistake...

I say farewell Internet Exploder, not sure you will be missed.

[arn]

regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn

[j33pd0g]

Maybe M$ will *borrow Opera technology.












*Acquiring them against their will, using nothing but the latest in Microsoft theft technology.

[iJon]

Originally posted by arn
regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn
very true, hopefully apple can solve these problems. its also a bad thing overall if this leads to stopping windows media player and office.

iJon

[Kid Red]

Originally posted by psxndc
While I too loathe IE and scold my fiancee when she uses it (for everything), from someone that works at a web development company, this is an issue. "IE for the Mac" has some weight behind it when we try to design pages. We don't code to it, we just make sure the sites we develop work in it. 90% of the people here aren't macheads so if I turn around tomorrow and say "you need to test on Safari and Camino now", people will just look at me like I have three heads. I wonder where this will lead in terms of site testing/browser consideration...

-P

I'm sorry but this is no issue especially for someoen at a web developement company as you should be testing in VPC or on a pc as well not just IE for mac. IE for mac is more picky then IE for windows no doubt, but between Safari and IE in VPC and IE 5.2, I really don't see a problem for anyone for a few years. By then, Safari will rock.

[myrdred23]

heh!

That's pretty funny, since Microsoft announced that they will still develop IE for mac and their MBU was making huge progress in IE 6 for mac, and had no plans of discontinuing it, when Apple released Safari. Yet another case of Microsoft not keeping their word.

Oh well, regardless, IE for OS X sucked anyways, so no big loss. OS X still has 6 or so browsers available.

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by arn
regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn


How?!?!

Remember:

Never ever ever was there a time when the Windows version of Internet Explorer rendered the same way as the Mac version of Internet Explorer. They both were totally different code bases and rendered things their own way. Win supported 'xxy' okay but Mac didn't... Mac supported 'yyx' okay but Win didn't...

MSIE for the Mac was just one more 'less than perfect web browser' (note: no web browser is perfect they all have 'issues') that web developers either chose to test against or not.

A web developer that never chose to test his/her designs and code against the Mac version of IE will still choose NOT to test designs against Safari. A web developer that DID choose to test against the Mac version of MSIE will now test against Safari (and stop testing against MSIE since it's not being developed any longer). No harm no foul near as I can tell... Oh and maybe it's PLUS since web developers and users don't have to 'choose' Safari or MSIE for OS X... Thus Safari gets more Market share by default and more web designers WILL test against it if the numbers grow.

Anyway... This is just like Microsoft... they don't like competition... They are either 'the only game in town' or they buy / destroy the other games so they become 'the only game in town' ... if they can't do that they take their ball and run home.

Good riddens to bad rubbish...

Dave

[arogge]

Microsoft Internet Explorer is one of the first things that I delete from a new Mac. I keep a copy of Mozilla or Safari on disk so that I don't have to touch MSIE and "agree" to the Microsoft license. Deleting MSIE recovers about 24 MB of disk space and eliminates the security problems inherent in using Microsoft software.

From the MSIE EULA:
"Without prejudice to any other rights, Microsoft may terminate this EULA if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this EULA. In such event, you must destroy all copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT."

No, Microsoft, you can't. I will have already destroyed the software by the time I close the window containing the license.

I hope that Apple will dump Microsoft Office next.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by arn
regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn
Yea, but its not like web sites that only worked in windows IE some how also worked only in IE mac, mostly they didn't...more than anything, MS's proprietary Java (not included with IE mac) is what causes the incompatibility...that and WinDOS Media Player 9.

[shadowself]

I believe most of the posters here are missing the point.

This is just the final phase of Microsoft's classic "accept, extend, kill-of-non-MS-Windows-versions".

After a few fits and starts, Microsoft came out with a browser equal to Netscape Navigator. Because it was not clearly and obviously better than Navigator, they embedded it into the Windows OS so the default would be IE. Easily 90% of the Windows users switched to IE when they (or their company) upgraded to the newer versions of Windows. MS was convicted of illegally extending their monopoly in part because of this. (Their punishment? They had to promise to never do it again. Just as it was with the first "consent decree" they signed.)

The next step was to extend the capabilities of IE with MS proprietary stuff. The most recent levels of this are deep within the .Net programming that many companies are slowly moving to in their newest web enabled front ends to everything from corporate data base access to online sales. Only browsers that support the extended capabilities will be able to be used to view these sites.

Then MS kills of all non MS Windows versions of IE. There is nothing which requires MS to publish all the non-standard, MS extensions for Internet use of .Net and IE. MS does not have to publish changes to non-standard, MS specific extensions each time they put out a patch set for .Net developers or IE.

Thus all other browser developers are simply a step or two behind these MS specific extensions. The result is Apple, and others, must find out from users, "Oh, Safari does not work with this site any more. We need to find out what happened, what's changed."

Businesses are not going to go with any browser that puts them in a position to not be able to access what they need to access. A multi-day (or maybe even a multi-week) lag between MS making changes and Apple making changes to Safari to keep up will not be tolerated by most businesses.

Thus more and more users/companies will be forced to migrate to Windows. Just another example of the abuse of a monopoly position.

What will their punishment be this time? Probably no different than the last two times!

[modyouup]

**** micro$oft! No one needs their ****!


Safari ownz IE. :D

[rog]

As much as I hate IE, I still have to use it on occasion. Yes, some web pages only seem to work properly for IE. Like it or not, it's become a standard of sorts. With M$ abandoning it entirely, this is not good news at all. How long until they abandon Office? Also makes me question what we'll really see out of VPC now that they own it.

This was their plan all along. Kill all browser competetition. Make it so you have to have IE, which you can only get by buying windows. Same old anticompetetive BS they always do. And now the Justice Department just looks the other way, even though they have been ruled an abusive monopoly. We all know the current administration loves a good monopoly.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by arogge
I hope that Apple will dump Microsoft Office next.
That is just CrAzY! Apple would loose alot of "switchers" if there were no Office for OS X.

[Bob Knob]

This could be bad. Many web designers take the easy way out and check for browser "x", not if your browser is compatible, the banking industry is notorious for this. So if we don't have IE, and a site only looks for IE, no matter how good your browser is you're out of luck. I've always found the fact that there is so much difference in how all the browsers display pages completely against all logic... there are html code standards after all... but then again MS has never really followed established standards have they.

[macnews]

Originally posted by vniow
I was under the impression that MSN for OSX used IE 6, may be wrong though...

From the info on MSN8:
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; PPC Mac OS X 10.2.6; Tasman 0.9; MSN 8.0; MSN Explorer 2.0; MSNbMSN; MSNmen-us; MSNc11)

I normally don't use IE or MSN8 to surf the web (MSN8 came packaged with my DSL and was cheapest). I like Camino and Safari but until web coders start adhering to the web standards (and not just IE "standards") there will always be problems using non-IE browsers. Perhaps this will be the push to make them true standards.

Makes me wonder if M$ had this planned as a way to force windoze users to upgrade to fix bugs.

[Windowlicker]

The less MS software I have on my computer the better.

I still have IE on my HD just in case I can get nothing else to work.. Haven't used it for like a year though. Safari is the way to go.

[mactastic]

Wooohooooo! Party at my house to celebrate!

How does it make it less compatible? I'm a little confused about that.

[arogge]

Originally posted by edesignuk
That is just CrAzY! Apple would loose alot of "switchers" if there were no Office for OS X.

I seem to be able to interest potential Switchers into buying Macs after they hear that they don't need to spend so much money on Microsoft software. Once OpenOffice.org comes out of Beta, Microsoft Office really will be an expensive and unnecessary piece of junk. The removal of the cost of Microsoft software is enough for some people to justify the higher Apple prices.

[littlejim]

I'm sorry but this is no issue especially for someoen at a web developement company as you should be testing in VPC or on a pc as well not just IE for mac. IE for mac is more picky then IE for windows no doubt, but between Safari and IE in VPC and IE 5.2, I really don't see a problem for anyone for a few years. By then, Safari will rock.

Very true!

No more IE for OSX is a good move for me - it means I now have a legitamate reason for not testing my sites on IE OSX (But will keep testing on OS9).

The problems start if VPC development didn't continue ....

[pcp_ip]

The problem here is that any extranet that is running on a MS IIS webserver- and using NT authentication- won't be able to be accessed by macs.

I know someone here will say, "who cares."

Maybe you don't- but there's enough individual mac users working in huge all PC corporate enviroments that will care.

PC and Mac IEs are the only ones that can authenticate with a MS IIS. No other bowser can do it.

It's a setback for macs in the corporate world.

[inkswamp]

So, I wonder if anyone in Cupertino is considering the fact that once MS no longer makes a standalone browser, that there will be an opening for any company who might be developing browsers to come along and fill. Apple is already developing iTunes for Windows and iTunes uses a web-like interface. I wonder how much extra work it would be to create a Windows version of Safari. Imagine the irony of Apple suddenly challenging MS on their own platform. It would be fun to watch, especially given that Safari already has features that MS shows no inclination to include (tabs, pop-up blocking, etc.)

[tpjunkie]

For the most part, good riddance...however, there are still a few features missing from safari that I hope will be found in the final release.

[k2k koos]

My first response was: Hooray, no more IE, but wait a minute, no further windows development either?! Perhaps that can mean that MS is developing an IE follow up with a diiferent name, which might also be available for OSX....

After all , there can't be good without bad, IE without Safari,Mac without windows, 970's without pentiums (who else are we going to make fun off?...anyone?)

But before we ditch it completely,
Let's get Safari sorted out first, at the moment I resort to IE occasionally for certain online forms to fill in (try book a flight ticket with KLM UK using Safari at the moment, but I hope the final release will be okay for this kind of use...)

[GPTurismo]

Originally posted by arn
regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn

I agree. But maybe they are going to spread into another App by a different name? Because what have they said about Office 11 for Mac? The one that has Exchange support in Entourage? After posting that news and not delivering it will only prove the MS vs Apple thing will be full force again...

[gt302]

I have been using IE for some time now to save archives of WebPages. Why? because I like to have a saved file from a developer or version tracker setting right nest to the stuffit file of the application it refers to. Its a wonderful way to keep track of the latest information without having to be online.

Another up side to IE archive is that it creates a single file (no dependant .jpg or html files) with absolute links. This is different in Safari which creates Relative links. What a drag this is when in Safari you want to click and follow a link in the archive to a pertinent site but Safari can't follow the link because it looks for the relative file it that was originally linked to. On the other hand, IE warns you that it will need to go online to follow the link. If you accept, then IE will easily interpolate the relative link and guide you to the expected destination.

Ok now that you know the issue involved, I want to know if there is an app that will convert my IE archives (in IE's WAFF format) to something that is a more long term solution, Safari would be my preference.

[Stella]

BOO HOO!

I'm heart broken.. NOT!

Good ridden imo.

[arogge]

Originally posted by Windowlicker
The less MS software I have on my computer the better.

Since the Classic environment also includes IE and Outlook, deleting the bundled Microsoft software recovered 60 MB of disk space, not including the Microsoft Office trialware. Don't forget to check your Classic installation for unwanted Microsoft software.

[Longey Nowze]

isn't this monopolistic?

oh and I never ever could log into hotmail or any other site that you has secure connection not even .mac!! i dont know what could be wrong it... it worked on my brother's powermac!

thank you
MaT

[DTDunn]

My next Mac is going to be 100% Microsoft free. Apple should offer a non-Microsoft model as an option.

[chubakka]

Aren't there supposed to be web standards
that everyone is supposed to follow?

I would think whomever implements it the best
would be the most successful. But how many people code
websites to deal with IE's idiosycracies.

I use IE now and it's crap. I look forward to when my agency
switches over to OS X and I can use safari.

[zuggerat]

this might sound crazy but it aint no lie IE's bye bye bye



...i never though Nsync would be good for anything

[Wonder Boy]

Good. IE is/was terrible.

BTW- I have never been too hot about the name "Safari". As an anthropologist, one would think I would appriciate the name, but I don't. I think Apple could have done better (don't bother asking for suggestions on alternate names, because I have no idea what it should be called).

Holla.

[sabbath999]

Internet Explorer is the finest software app that Microsoft has ever produced.

Isn't that depressing?

[Foxer]

Look. I never use IE and never planned on doing so. I use Safari and (when it isn't compatible) Mozilla. HOWEVER, when I switched a couple years ago, fact that IE was down there on the dock was of great reassurance.

Now I know, and someone who switches today will soon learn, that most MS apps can be replaced with better alternatives. But for the great undecided "walk-ins" out there, that little IE icon is a good thing for Apple.

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by Foxer
Look. I never use IE and never planned on doing so. I use Safari and (when it isn't compatible) Mozilla. HOWEVER, when I switched a couple years ago, fact that IE was down there on the dock was of great reassurance.

Now I know, and someone who switches today will soon learn, that most MS apps can be replaced with better alternatives. But for the great undecided "walk-ins" out there, that little IE icon is a good thing for Apple.

While that may be true on some levels, take Keynote. It was probably released a year to soon. There are many lacking features. For example, I want to time-delay builds, not require clicks. Can't do that. Which is horrible for exporting to QuickTime where everything has to be set to a certain time delay.

[weev]

The golden dawn of the Apple age is upon us.

The evil foe has been bested on the battlefields of browsers.

Today the browser! Tomorrow the operating system!!

[avus]

This is slightly off the subject, but I think that MS will discontinue Windows Media for Mac next.

Sure, you can say that it is not worth watching/listening if something is broadcasted in Windows Media - actually I hate it too and I am continually amazed how bad it really is - but remember that the only streaming media carrying the recent introduction of the new iPod and the iTMS was Windows Media by MSNBC! There are some contents you've got to see even in Windows Media.

The Windows Media 9 contents are not available for Mac now and never will be, IE for Mac being officially axed, and MS now owns Virtual PC - I am beginning to think that MacOSRumors' (gasp!) contention, that MS is trying to stop all the Mac developments and force Mac users to Dark Side, is correct. Whether they will be successful, I doubt it.

[jethroted]

Good! The less M$ we have on our systems the better. One day we will be able to run our x86 boxes without M$, and I look forward to it! I hope they stop making their computer polluting software for everyone.

[eric_n_dfw]

Originally posted by dguisinger
You do realize that about 40-50% of new software is being written in .NET, and that embracing the technology would provide more options for Mac users (for client side apps), not less.I agreed with everything else you said, but this part made me raise an eyebrow. Now, I'm a server side developer who's been working on J2EE and Unix C/C++ for several years, so maybe I'm out of touch with desktop software, but are you sure about that number?

When you say .NET (of which I'll admit, I have 0 experience with) do you mean Windows app's written using .NET studio? In which case I'd say that .NET is just the next gen of Microsoft's Windows API's like when they migrated to MFC back in the 90's.

I'd be interested in reading any supporting data you have on this 40-50% claim.

[mkaake]

while this may not be great for compatibility issues, we're not the only one's getting dumped.

if there's no longer going to be a stand alone ie, then ie will soon no longer have a commanding majority (in it's most current form). think about it for a minute- most of the people that i know aren't using xp (most hate it, actually) (and those are windose people), and most of them aren't even using ie 6. i also know that most of the *older* people I know that are doing online banking (read: have more money invested) are not using the latest microsoft os or IE.

so really, while this may not be great for compatibility, we're not dead - microsoft is hurting themselves with this - more people (realizing that not eveyone will be running the latest and greatest) will make sure code works for everyone.

matt

[Archmage]

Originally posted by zuggerat
this might sound crazy but it aint no lie IE's bye bye bye



...i never though Nsync would be good for anything

HEY. *NSYNC rocks! Don't be dissin' the dudes. They have talent.

[MOM]

I hope that in the long run this is good news. I think this will keep lazy web designers from testing only/mostly with IE and make them consider that other browsers are out there, ie. Safari. I wish all the other browsers success, I'm an avid iCab user myself. Nonetheless, I think Apple's Safari has the best chance of being noticed and used for testing web sites. The only problem is that Apple's market share, and thus Safari's market share, is still very low. Thats the dangerous part. Hopefully, when Safari hits 1.0, then banks and other institutions will begin to accept this new browser.

[tom.96]

I use OS9.1, and I seem to be the only one in the world that still uses Netscape! I actually think Netscape 7 is the best browser I've ever used, and that includes IE. (Yes I have tried most other browsers including safari on newer macs than my own) However, some financial websites don't work at all with Netscape, and so I have to still use IE, so if IE is not going to be here anymore, a lack of compatibility with financial sites is going to be a problem.

And just a note to everyone... Netscape 7 is good! If you had bad experiences with Netscape 6, don't worry, its all been fixed in 7! I wouldn''t be without it, and prefer it to anything else!

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
I agreed with everything else you said, but this part made me raise an eyebrow. Now, I'm a server side developer who's been working on J2EE and Unix C/C++ for several years, so maybe I'm out of touch with desktop software, but are you sure about that number?

When you say .NET (of which I'll admit, I have 0 experience with) do you mean Windows app's written using .NET studio? In which case I'd say that .NET is just the next gen of Microsoft's Windows API's like when they migrated to MFC back in the 90's.

I'd be interested in reading any supporting data you have on this 40-50% claim.

When I say 40-50% of apps, am referring to desktop apps written for Windows. You have to realize, that it is extreamly hard to do anything in the two latest visual studio incarnations without wanting a feature from .NET. You can program .NET in C++, C#, J++, VB....plus other 3rd party languages. You also have to realize that .NET is a replacement of the Windows API, not a follow on like MFC. The .NET APIs are designed to fully replace, and in many cases have more capabilities than the Windows APIs. Infact, other than syntax, System.Windows.Forms is very much like Cocoa's window manager in the way everything interacts with the users code....of course, no NIBS. But very much the same structure to the classes.

There are some things you still can't do in .NET....which is why you can involke non .NET code libraries. But most of it is there, infact DirectX 9 interfaces with .NET. Now you can program games in .NET, and with code caching, .NET saves the compiled code after it is ran the first time, to speed applications up. Much better than Java recompiling everytime you run an app.

BTW, when I say 40-50% what does it include?
Windows Explorer in Windows Longhorn
Upcoming Microsoft Office release
Visual Studio is entirely written in .NET

Why are application developers switching?
Simple, integrated XML data archiving from all objects, very well tuned data table/row interface called ADO.NET, which interfaces with MS SQL, ODBC, Oracle, and MySQL (with 3rd party MySQL adapter). Infact, you can take data from the database, give it a schema, and spit it out as XML, or bind it to controls, and your application can automatically navigate through data. Very nice, very code efficient.

So when I say 40%-50%, I can guarentee that for Windows applications the movement is there. In addition, checkout your local bookstore. Barns & Noble has 10x the .NET books than it does Java or C / legacy VB. Developers who work with it love it, preach it, and know it makes their lives easier.

I must add however, MS will not make cross platform their goal. While it is like Java in that its able to go cross platform, its been left to the open source community to make it work on other platforms. So again, anyone with PPC assembly experience is urged to look at Mono. That project is in need of a PPC compiler, as it only works under an interpreter for PPC at this time.

[PowerBook User]

Originally posted by Longey Nowze
isn't this monopolistic?

oh and I never ever could log into hotmail or any other site that you has secure connection not even .mac!! i dont know what could be wrong it... it worked on my brother's powermac!

thank you
MaT

I think this is abusing their monopoly position. Since the US DOJ didn't do anything, now they discontinue IE for Mac and completely integrate it into Windows. And they'll probably get away with that, too. I don't use IE often, but it's nice to have it for occasional use.

[PowerBook User]

Originally posted by tom.96
I use OS9.1, and I seem to be the only one in the world that still uses Netscape! I actually think Netscape 7 is the best browser I've ever used, and that includes IE. (Yes I have tried most other browsers including safari on newer macs than my own) However, some financial websites don't work at all with Netscape, and so I have to still use IE, so if IE is not going to be here anymore, a lack of compatibility with financial sites is going to be a problem.

And just a note to everyone... Netscape 7 is good! If you had bad experiences with Netscape 6, don't worry, its all been fixed in 7! I wouldn''t be without it, and prefer it to anything else!

I also still use Netscape in OS 9. I like Netscape 7. I just wish they would decrease how bloated/slow it is. Otherwise it's a great browser.

[Blackcat]

Originally posted by pcp_ip
The problem here is that any extranet that is running on a MS IIS webserver- and using NT authentication- won't be able to be accessed by macs.

I know someone here will say, "who cares."

Maybe you don't- but there's enough individual mac users working in huge all PC corporate enviroments that will care.

PC and Mac IEs are the only ones that can authenticate with a MS IIS. No other bowser can do it.

It's a setback for macs in the corporate world.

People saying "who cares" are being nieve and don't use their Macs for business.

My company uses both IIS and MS Sharepoint both of which you need IE to use fully.

No IT manager will allow Macs in the office if this continues.

Not good.

[MacSlut]

No IE for Mac is in no way a good thing. If *you* didn't like IE, then you never had to use it. For the rest of us there were many things about IE that we're still not seeing in Safari, and there would be now one less choice...one less, this site doesn't work, let's try another browser.

IE hadn't been upgraded in way too long of a time, but I was hoping IE 6 would be a large improvement of its core, while adding things like tabs and so forth.

Safari has some great features, but it's missing a lot as well. Simple things like opening an image in a new window and having it display the file specs...this is huge for a Web developer. Inability to acknowledge case in domain names...again simple, but a huge pain when it comes to copying and pasting URLs where you care about the domain as a brand.

How about being able to customize Safari's interface? It's pretty limited because if its overall design, but even then you can't add any functionality. Look at the attached image, you'll see I completely retooled IE. Not only does the toolbar look different, but it has enhanced functionality. This was easy with a little knowledge of photoshop, AppleScript, XML and Javascript. Note the Passwords icon...this asks for a main password which then pops up a database of usernames/passwords/URLs. I use this constantly...no can do with Safari.

I also have a Downloads button which automatically opens my downloads folder showing.

http://domdominion.com/images/toolbar2.gif

And what about the page holder? Take a look at the search pane I created for IE. This is just a couple of searches, I have tons that show up in that pane. Likewise the page holder pane has a page with a list of commonly viewed sites. There are all kinds of things like this in IE that maybe few took advantage of, but they're clearly missing from Safari.

http://domdominion.com/images/search.gif

I can see how Safari is a way better browser is you don't use a lot of features or if you prefer features of Safari that aren't in IE, but it seems to me like Safari isn't a better browser (yet) just a different browser and it has farther to go than IE to actually be a better browser.

[Arcady]

To all you people saying that you can't use a Mac if you don't have IE: Do you think that Bill Gates is going to come to your house and delete IE from your installation of OS X? You still have the program, and it still works. Hopefully it will still work in 10.3 and later (or Apple can just tweak the OS to make it work.)

My question is: Will Apple still bundle IE with the OS?

[j33pd0g]

:( what if Microsoft trys to set a new web standard, example: MShtml instead of html... then nothing will work in safari... because M$ will have exclusive rights to that technology.

[Mudbug]

honestly until safari, I liked Netscape 4.76 the best - never crashed, had mail included, quick...

but then Netscape 7 came out, and knocked themselves back a few steps. Then I upgraded to X, and used IE 'cause I didn't know any better, and Netscape ran like fecal matter in classic. When Safari came out i switched while the keynote was still on tv. I only used IE after then for times (like now) where I have weird things happening in Safari that don't happen in IE.

I would delete it now, but I kinda need it. but i don't need to upgrade it, so poo on them. good riddance.

[solvs]

Originally posted by Arcady
To all you people saying that you can't use a Mac if you don't have IE: Do you think that Bill Gates is going to come to your house and delete IE from your installation of OS X? You still have the program, and it still works. Hopefully it will still work in 10.3 and later (or Apple can just tweak the OS to make it work.)

My question is: Will Apple still bundle IE with the OS?

Thank you. I was just about to say that. Relax folks, for now M$ is stopping DEVELOPMENT of a new IE. Doesn't mean IE won't exist anymore. It just mean it probably won't get past it's current version. I'm sure Apple will continue to include it for awhile, and even after Safari is "finished", you can still download it from M$'s website.

This isn't great news, but the world won't end. You just won't see any new versions.

And anyone who builds a website that ONLY works with the latest and greatest is committing business suicide.

Originally posted by j33pd0g
:( what if Microsoft trys to set a new web standard, example: MShtml instead of html... then nothing will work in safari... because M$ will have exclusive rights to that technology.

And any site that is MSHTML ONLY will fail because there are too many people out there who will still use the older technology. OS 9, Win9x, IE 5...

[MovieGuy]

Originally posted by iJon
no one will switch to apple for safari so i think apple should go ahead and release safari for windows, really steal some thunder. the only problem that could arouse from that is if microsoft stopped office, which would stop apple in its place, lose lots of business sales and potentially many consumer sales.

iJon


Safari has not been marketed as a switcher application. Apple has focused Safari attention at mac users already out there who can browse faster using safari. I think that in the end this will have no affect on the Mac. People will know there are browsers for Mac. And MS is not abandoning IE, it will simply be bundled with Windows from now on and you wont be able to download it as a single application. The browser is so intergrated with windows that is something is wrong with the os, then something will be worng with the browser...so why fix two apps when you can just fix part of the os. Granted, MS still has A LOT of fixing to do. I think Apple knows of the MacBU plans...does anyone else see the intro of Keynote as maybe a preparation for a replacement for office? If MS stops developing for Mac, I think Apple will be prepaired. They aren't stupid. We will just have to wait and see.....

[visor]

Originally posted by psxndc
While I too loathe IE and scold my fiancee when she uses it (for everything), from someone that works at a web development company, this is an issue. "IE for the Mac" has some weight behind it when we try to design pages....

-P

Well, as the WinIE behaves still a bit different than the mac IE - I like to see just another redundant browser that doen't behave well - go.

[MovieGuy]

Originally posted by j33pd0g
:( what if Microsoft trys to set a new web standard, example: MShtml instead of html... then nothing will work in safari... because M$ will have exclusive rights to that technology.


They wouldn't even consider. Do you know the monopolistic implications that would have if MS controlled the internet? The will continue to try and make Windows a better place to surf while leaving most internet standards as is. MS still sucks though.

[jbrown]

what be this IE thingy that everybody is chattering about~~~~let me see --- I remember something of that moniker --- but it was sssoooo long ago, me old bones can't recall~~~some youngster is sure to help me out here......:D :D :D

[Le Big Mac]

Originally posted by Arcady
To all you people saying that you can't use a Mac if you don't have IE: Do you think that Bill Gates is going to come to your house and delete IE from your installation of OS X? You still have the program, and it still works. Hopefully it will still work in 10.3 and later (or Apple can just tweak the OS to make it work.)
?

Yeah. I still have iTunes 4.0 running just fine.

This basically doesn't matter in the short run. You can still use IE 5.2 (or whatever) as long as you want. The only concern is that eventually html will be written that only newer browsers understand. But how far off is that? Probably at least a couple of years, and longer for the major websites, which want to remain available to the installed based of IE5 users on PCs and macs.

It's too bad that MS is taking away this option, though. But MS hardly is threatening to Macs, since we have plenty of other choices. It's the PC users who are forced to use IE, not us.

[Doctor Q]

Although in theory the more browser competition the better, having Internet Explorer fade from the Mac scene might actually put more pressure on Safari and the others as they compete for the potential new market share. My only worry is that I'll lose the ability to use I.E. for those occasions when a web site has been designed so that it works correctly only with I.E. Such sites might clean up their act :), migrate to work with whatever Mac browsers dominate :rolleyes:, or no longer work with Macs :(.

Here's an entertaining view of the demise of I.E. for Windows:
http://www.divstivs.plus.com/iconwar/ (http://www.divstivs.plus.com/iconwar/)

[pickles]

Originally posted by jacg
I still have to use IE for certain sites. Will IE fall behind even further as the Mac OS evolves? Can we assume that Safari will eventually work everywhere and do everything that IE can (except quicker)?

I, too need to use IE for work. One of my fabricators has an online ordering system that is coded for IE 5.5 and above (I know, the Mac version only goes to 5.2.2) and they will NOT dumb it down so that Mac users can use it. They say that this is a M$ issue and not their fault. I, of course , told them that they should have done better reseach before developing their system since it is supposed to be "cross platform".:confused:

[MetallicPenguin]

Yes free at last! Now, this is when everyone will eventually...eh..yeah, I'm tired...

[markomarko]

Originally posted by psxndc
While I too loathe IE and scold my fiancee when she uses it (for everything), from someone that works at a web development company, this is an issue. "IE for the Mac" has some weight behind it when we try to design pages. We don't code to it, we just make sure the sites we develop work in it. 90% of the people here aren't macheads so if I turn around tomorrow and say "you need to test on Safari and Camino now", people will just look at me like I have three heads. I wonder where this will lead in terms of site testing/browser consideration...

-P

Well, get educating these people, because unless you explain that it is NECESSARY to test for these browsers, you're doing a disservice to every mac user out there.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by markomarko
Well, get educating these people, because unless you explain that it is NECESSARY to test for these browsers, you're doing a disservice to every mac user out there.

Not just mac users, but web users in general.

The state of web design is ridiculous. There are web standards that browsers don't interpret correctly, which leads to kludges/hacks and workarounds, which leads to proprietary code, which leads to a belief that only certain browsers are capable of displaying certain pages.

Follow web standards, people, and compliant browsers (like Safari) will have no problem with your pages. Use junk markup and IE-specific code and you're walking down the path of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[visor]

Originally posted by chubakka
Aren't there supposed to be web standards
that everyone is supposed to follow?

I would think whomever implements it the best
would be the most successful. But how many people code
websites to deal with IE's idiosycracies.

I use IE now and it's crap. I look forward to when my agency
switches over to OS X and I can use safari.

What you say is partly true. If one implements W3C standarts, you're pretty safe on all browsers and platforms.
However, there are some reasons to include IE Windows stuff to make the Webpage easier and faster to navigate. However, these can be implemented in such a way that they are optional benifits for the user, but not mandatory for use of the site.
This is what we implement and it's quite successful.
'm really greatful to Apple that they are sticking to standards very much. It makes development for the Mac so much easier ;)

[gopher]

Anyone who won't develop crossplatform webpages won't have my business. There is even a great organization that is trying to get more websites to develop platform and browser independence. It is called http://www.anybrowser.org/

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by gopher
Anyone who won't develop crossplatform webpages won't have my business. There is even a great organization that is trying to get more websites to develop platform and browser independence. It is called http://www.anybrowser.org/

An even better one is the Web Standards Project (http://www.webstandards.org/).

Also, for all you developers out there, validate your HTML and CSS pages:
HTML - http://validator.w3.org/
CSS - http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html

[cotteez]

I think we need to remember that Apple is only new to developing browsers. MS has been doing it for years. Be patient, Apple WILL get it all right:D

[Marc the Mac]

Has anyone mentioned about 'Accessibility' legislation yet?

while IE was available for Mac - web developers knew that it was likely that most Mac users would be able to view a web site in IE. For a truly accessible web site it not only has to be accessible by those with various disabilities but also by different access devices. The main device being a Desktop PC (that includes an Apple Desktop computer, laptops etc).

So with Safari as the bundled Mac browser developers will now have to seriously consider making web sites compatible with Safari to provide a truly accessible web site. At present there are issues with Safari. If Apple can make Safari work just like IE in the way it handles the W3C standards - that would be great.

I can see safari doing really well if it is developed at top notch pace and commitment. Please do a good job on this one Apple..

:rolleyes:

[ryan]

Originally posted by dguisinger

So when I say 40%-50%, I can guarentee that for Windows applications the movement is there. In addition, checkout your local bookstore. Barns & Noble has 10x the .NET books than it does Java or C / legacy VB. Developers who work with it love it, preach it, and know it makes their lives easier.
Even if this were true (which is my experience its not, course I try to avoid B&Ns) it would seem to reason that there would be more .NET books than Java or C++ or VB books since there has to be duplicate books for all the different .NET languages to do the same thing. i.e. Windows Forms Programming with C#, Windows Forms Programming with VB.NET, etc.


I must add however, MS will not make cross platform their goal. While it is like Java in that its able to go cross platform, its been left to the open source community to make it work on other platforms. So again, anyone with PPC assembly experience is urged to look at Mono. That project is in need of a PPC compiler, as it only works under an interpreter for PPC at this time.
To be spending any time developing code for .NET on a platform other than Windows is just plain stupid. To trust MS not to pull a patent out (like say, this (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=20030028685&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01) one) and kill of all non-MS licensed .NET technology is just foolish.

.NET has some great technologies and some impressive tools, its just too bad the vast majority of it is closed source and is controlled by a convicted monopolist who can't be trusted (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52423-2003Jun12.html?nav=hptoc_tn).

[rog]

Originally posted by tom.96
I use OS9.1, and I seem to be the only one in the world that still uses Netscape! I actually think Netscape 7 is the best browser I've ever used, and that includes IE. (Yes I have tried most other browsers including safari on newer macs than my own) However, some financial websites don't work at all with Netscape, and so I have to still use IE, so if IE is not going to be here anymore, a lack of compatibility with financial sites is going to be a problem.

And just a note to everyone... Netscape 7 is good! If you had bad experiences with Netscape 6, don't worry, its all been fixed in 7! I wouldn''t be without it, and prefer it to anything else!

You should try using Mozilla for OS9. Even better than Netscape, but overall very similar.

[jamilecrire]

Originally posted by arn
regardless of your like or dislike of IE, this is not a good thing overall.

It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

arn

Not really. 63% of websites still run on Apache and only 26% run on Windows.
(See attached image from news.netcraft.com)

Also compatability based on web servers has nothing to do with the PC vs. Mac situation. It's a choice of individual website operators to make sure their sites work in the various available browsers. My company uses Mozilla exclusively and we frequently neglect our IE testing. However, since the states require healthcare organizations to use Netscape for their connections, this rarely turns into a problem for us.

At my own company I develop for mac, solaris, windows, linux and target mozilla as the platform since it is available on so many different OSes. So to me it's not a compatability thing it's a web developer thing.

[Windowlicker]

hmm very good points, people. I was thinking I don't need IE (and I don't right now), but the vision where MS will set up completely new standards there is very frightening, because then they'll totally have a monopoly. it would totally suck not being able to use any web services.

I can do my online banking etc fine with safari (since the 1st public beta), but if the future of the internet is in the hands of MS, not good.

So, I take back the positive posivite grade I gave the thread.. :(

[visor]

Originally posted by Blackcat
People saying "who cares" are being nieve and don't use their Macs for business.

My company uses both IIS and MS Sharepoint both of which you need IE to use fully.

No IT manager will allow Macs in the office if this continues.

Not good.
I think you don't understand how these businesses work like.
They buy a solution that does what they need. In your case, the MS solution was bought, now you have to stick to it. Simple.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by Marc the Mac
If Apple can make Safari work just like IE in the way it handles the W3C standards - that would be great.

Sorry, but it wouldn't. Safari needs to aim for simply handling the standards, not attempting to mimic another browser's handling of them.

Browsers emulating IE only helps to stagnate standards adoption and further entrench IE-specific design.

[sonicsessions]

if someone has already mentioned this, sorry, but I didn't feel like scanning 5 pages of posts...

anyway, as much as I like safari, and as great as it runs on macs, it is still quite far from perfect. There are several issues with CSS that safari has (has anyone tried to do a div overflow in safari? doesn't work there, but works as it should in mozilla-based and, shock-horror, IE). There are quite a few annoying things like that for web designers that drive us insane. As much as I want Safari to be the "Be all, end all" of mac browsers, it just doesn't cut the mustard yet. Hopefully, the developers of khtml will address some of the major layout/standards issues in the core, and Safari can turn into in incredible app. Until then, I'll stick with camino or firebird...

but anyway, back to the subject... yes, good riddance to bad rubbish... I really can't stand IE... especially their flippant disregard for alpha PNG support! Bastards!

[hvfsl]

I have started using Firebird (Mozilia based browser) on my PC because IE has so many problems reading images on the Net and no ad blocking. However there are still a lot of sights out there that only work on IE (the Mac or PC version). So I have to go back to IE every now and then. This can only be a bad thing for Macs unless Apple or Mozilia makes a browser compatible with IE only sites.

[gopher]

Originally posted by cotteez
I think we need to remember that Apple is only new to developing browsers. MS has been doing it for years. Be patient, Apple WILL get it all right:D

Apple did it right before:

Cyberdog

[3.1416]

Originally posted by dguisinger
Why are application developers switching?

Because .NET is better for desktop apps than VB, VC++, and Java. But that's hardly high praise.

Infact, you can take data from the database, give it a schema, and spit it out as XML, or bind it to controls, and your application can automatically navigate through data. Very nice, very code efficient.

Hmm, just like WebObjects.

I must add however, MS will not make cross platform their goal. While it is like Java in that its able to go cross platform, its been left to the open source community to make it work on other platforms. So again, anyone with PPC assembly experience is urged to look at Mono. That project is in need of a PPC compiler, as it only works under an interpreter for PPC at this time.

Mono is a Trojan horse, because .NET apps are always going to run substantially better on Windows. I see no reason to assist MS in furthering their dominance.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by dguisinger
Man you are smoking some great ****, can I have some?

[ ... ]

You do realize that about 40-50% of new software is being written in .NET, and that embracing the technology would provide more options for Mac users (for client side apps), not less.


Really? Are you sure about that (using MSVS.NET does not make an app .NET ... which I'm sure you know)? I mean, .NET isn't really applicable to most application spaces, so it seems odd that almost fully half of all development is using .NET.

Just a few years ago almost half of all development was using COBOL and the like (bank and corporate back-ends); I don't see any large percentage of those switching to .NET anytime in the near future, which means it's the other half that's switching to .NET. Seems we'd be hearing more about this mass adoption if it were true ...

So, if you can, please cite a source for your numbers. Thanks!

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by dguisinger
When I say 40-50% of apps, am referring to desktop apps written for Windows. You have to realize, that it is extreamly hard to do anything in the two latest visual studio incarnations without wanting a feature from .NET.


In other words, you just made up the "40-50%" figure.

Personally, i don't see much .NET usage amongst the programmers I know (the two who do use it think it is kludgy and hardly revolutionary). Maybe I hang with the wrong crowd, but we're a pretty even mix of app and server-side developers (and, yes, I'm the only one who develops on Mac as well as unix/Windows).

Also, "two latest VS incarnations" ... ? I thought VS 6.0 and then VS .NET were the last two? Has there been an update to VS.NET?

[IndyGopher]

what does this have to do with IE?

[Nermal]

Originally posted by dguisinger
I program exlusively in .NET. My web applications work fine in MSIE for Windows, Mac, and work great in Safari on my OSX box.

Interesting, I program in ASP.NET, and my web apps appear fine in IE for Win, look at little bit strange in IE for Mac, and look horrible in Safari. However, I've found that manually adjusting the size of any controls you put on the page can cause layout issues - if you leave them at the default sizes then they usually end up fine.

[Nermal]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Also, "two latest VS incarnations" ... ? I thought VS 6.0 and then VS .NET were the last two? Has there been an update to VS.NET?

Yep, there's VS.NET 2002 (uses .NET 1.0) and VS.NET 2003 (1.1).

[ohitsmatthew]

so i didnt read all of the posts, but i did notice a number of people getting excited about freeing 20-60mb of space off of their hard drives after deleting ms software. is it really worth a post to share that? i think i have text files on my computer that are 60mb hehe, not really. but on a 360gb raid array i guess you start disregarding anything under a gb. whatever. i guess this post wasnt even worth posting. sorry :)

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by Nermal
Interesting, I program in ASP.NET, and my web apps appear fine in IE for Win, look at little bit strange in IE for Mac, and look horrible in Safari. However, I've found that manually adjusting the size of any controls you put on the page can cause layout issues - if you leave them at the default sizes then they usually end up fine.

Don't use grid positioning and you will be fine. Also, Safari ignores style sheets on controls to make text box lengths. You have to remember to set the text box control length like you would for a non CSS browser.

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Really? Are you sure about that (using MSVS.NET does not make an app .NET ... which I'm sure you know)? I mean, .NET isn't really applicable to most application spaces, so it seems odd that almost fully half of all development is using .NET.

Just a few years ago almost half of all development was using COBOL and the like (bank and corporate back-ends); I don't see any large percentage of those switching to .NET anytime in the near future, which means it's the other half that's switching to .NET. Seems we'd be hearing more about this mass adoption if it were true ...

So, if you can, please cite a source for your numbers. Thanks!

I can tell you about 95% of the developers I know use .NET in one form or another. Half of the development a few years ago was in COBOL huh? Yeah right, when Y2K came around they could barely find a COBOL programmer to help companies out, hence the large paychecks they got.

Most developers for the Windows platform are evaluating .NET, and many have switched atleast some of their code base.

Consider this, upgrading from VB to VB.NET automatically converts your project to .NET. You do realize that an unbeleivable porportion of shareware, and small commercial apps, are written in VB even though they probably shouldnt have been? Nice thing is, VB.NET puts VB on equal footing with C#, C++ .NET, and other languages. Where as going from C to .NET takes work, VB to VB.NET is automatically converted by an upgrade wizard.

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by 3.1416
Because .NET is better for desktop apps than VB, VC++, and Java. But that's hardly high praise.



Hmm, just like WebObjects.



Mono is a Trojan horse, because .NET apps are always going to run substantially better on Windows. I see no reason to assist MS in furthering their dominance.

Like WebObjects...wouldnt say that. WebObjects is for web pages. .NET is for web pages and GUI apps and background services. I would relate it more to Cocoa, which can also serialize classes to XML just like .NET.

I don't see it as helping their dominence. The Mono project is quite far, and has done a lot of work. I wouldnt be surprised to see it included in the next version of RedHat.

So the question is, do you want Linux to be the only platform able to run the next generation of Windows apps? Or would you like MacOS X to as well? Which platforms have more applications? With so much push behind .NET, its hard to see a reasoning not to let it run on your platform.

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by ryan
Even if this were true (which is my experience its not, course I try to avoid B&Ns) it would seem to reason that there would be more .NET books than Java or C++ or VB books since there has to be duplicate books for all the different .NET languages to do the same thing. i.e. Windows Forms Programming with C#, Windows Forms Programming with VB.NET, etc.

[B]
To be spending any time developing code for .NET on a platform other than Windows is just plain stupid. To trust MS not to pull a patent out (like say, this (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=20030028685&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01) one) and kill of all non-MS licensed .NET technology is just foolish.

.NET has some great technologies and some impressive tools, its just too bad the vast majority of it is closed source and is controlled by a convicted monopolist who can't be trusted (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52423-2003Jun12.html?nav=hptoc_tn).

My experience has been that many books cover multiple languages on topic.... some books are devoted to windows forms, others devoted to ASP.NET. Yet others are dedicated to data access....and others to webservices, or handheld device programming.

The fact is thought, that it is very popular with microsoft developers right now. MS has submitted .NET to standards committies and let it pass, whereas Sun pushed Java and pulled it back when they were about to lose control.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger

The fact is thought, that it is very popular with microsoft developers right now. MS has submitted .NET to standards committies and let it pass, whereas Sun pushed Java and pulled it back when they were about to lose control.
Thats right, because sun doesn't have a monopoly, they have to worry, but since MS is one, well, they dont.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by MovieGuy
They wouldn't even consider. Do you know the monopolistic implications that would have if MS controlled the internet? The will continue to try and make Windows a better place to surf while leaving most internet standards as is..
What do you think .NET is for?

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger
So the question is, do you want Linux to be the only platform able to run the next generation of Windows apps? Or would you like MacOS X to as well? Which platforms have more applications? With so much push behind .NET, its hard to see a reasoning not to let it run on your platform.
How about this novel idea, don't support MS and instead just use what we already have...JAVA. Because I can guarantee you, the same thing MS did with IE to netscape (and doing to apple now), they will do to the software dev industry, just wait, mark my words. We'll be having this same discussion in the future about how MS is releasing .NET v2 and somehow forgetting to release the implementation docs so that MONO etc can implement it...this whole "open standard" facade-crap is just there to sucker the whole dev community into supporting .NET just like how they gave free copies of MS Office for free in the begining and then started charging 500 freaking dollars once it was Monopolized...once MS gets .NET accepted, they'll pull the rug out once again.

[freemidnight]

Explorer is dead!

Time to stop spawning bloathery disgusting shmluackjwzx!!!

:D :D :D :D :D :D

[The Shadow]

I don't really think MS not releasing future versions of MAC/IE is any big deal from a Web design point of view. Point being you need to test your new site on a WINDOWS machine running PC/IE.

But some of the posts pointing out the danger if MS engineers sites so you need IE to get in sounds like a real worry.

[jaykk]

Since IE is no longer available as a standalone application, the web is ultimately becomes part of Windows Operating System. Microsoft control 95% of browser market, so they can come up with their own standards. And all the webdevelopers (95% of those who write for IE) will be called Windows Developers since there is no more IE. Do u guys still remember what happened to Opera browser. M$ purposely cripped MSN not to look good under Opera. M$ have monolopy and can do whatever they want. So does their partner. I think its high time Apple come up with a browser for Linux at least, so that at least some Linux programmers will write safai compatible web. Also, i think both IBM and MS pulled out of W3C. so the standard is now upto M$.
Please apple, bring us Safari for Linux. and Windows too

[Fukui]

Originally posted by jaykk
Since IE is no longer available as a standalone application, the web is ultimately becomes part of Windows Operating System. Microsoft control 95% of browser market, so they can come up with their own standards. And all the webdevelopers (95% of those who write for IE) will be called Windows Developers since there is no more IE. Do u guys still remember what happened to Opera browser. M$ purposely cripped MSN not to look good under Opera. M$ have monolopy and can do whatever they want. So does their partner. I think its high time Apple come up with a browser for Linux at least, so that at least some Linux programmers will write safai compatible web. Also, i think both IBM and MS pulled out of W3C. so the standard is now upto M$.
Please apple, bring us Safari for Linux. and Windows too
Somebody gets it!! Give this man a prize.:D

P.S Safari is already on linux: Konqueror.

[j763]

oh yeah... we're really going to miss IE's NT Auth capabilities.

Give me a break!

I was stuck on a WinNT school network with my iBook, as were a bunch of my friends. IEmac unexpectedly quit every few pages you loaded... It is pretty much useless for NT Auth... It really does crash every minute or two. Disgraceful.

Hopefully someone works out a way of adding proper NT Auth support to Mozilla (and safari) -- that would be pretty useful. But i mean, come on, anyone who's used IE for NT Auth knows it SUCKS.

[MacKid]

At least 98% (and I'm not joking) of the people on this website use Safari anyway! So, I say it now (although I've read it on so many other posts), once and for all. . .WHO CARES???:confused: :eek: :cool: :D ;) :p

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by jaykk
Since IE is no longer available as a standalone application, the web is ultimately becomes part of Windows Operating System. Microsoft control 95% of browser market, so they can come up with their own standards. And all the webdevelopers (95% of those who write for IE) will be called Windows Developers since there is no more IE. Do u guys still remember what happened to Opera browser. M$ purposely cripped MSN not to look good under Opera. M$ have monolopy and can do whatever they want. So does their partner. I think its high time Apple come up with a browser for Linux at least, so that at least some Linux programmers will write safai compatible web. Also, i think both IBM and MS pulled out of W3C. so the standard is now upto M$.
Please apple, bring us Safari for Linux. and Windows too

More bull. You do know that the W3C DOES DO MORE THAN HTML right???

IBM & MS pulled out of the W3C for specific web services security specs, not for all HTML specs.

I am really sick of people writing about things, when they don't even bother reading past the headlines of the news stories they quote.

[vollspacken]

IE is dead, SO WHAT?!

- this is good, more and more people will migrate to 3rd party browsers like Netscape and Opera on PeeCee or Safari and Chamino on Mac (actually, most people I know don't use IE anyway...)

vSpacken

[blueBomber]

Originally posted by vollspacken
IE is dead, SO WHAT?!

- this is good, more and more people will migrate to 3rd party browsers like Netscape and Opera on PeeCee or Safari and Chamino on Mac (actually, most people I know don't use IE anyway...)

vSpacken

I agree with your point of view on the mac side of things... but I don't know many people that use the IE alternatives on the pc side. I use mozilla on my pc, but I still need IE for some things (namely, when I go to click on an embeded windows media file in Mozilla, all I get is garbled text. In IE, it open windows media, and no, trying to save the link target doesn't work). I try to introduce people to the wonderful world of Mozilla and other browsers as often as possible (not to mention the mac), but more often than not, they find one website that doesn't work properly, and go right back to IE. It's unfortunate, but IE is THE standard for compatibility on the Windows side. And who controls the majority of desktops?....

[macdong]

Originally posted by dguisinger
More bull. You do know that the W3C DOES DO MORE THAN HTML right???

IBM & MS pulled out of the W3C for specific web services security specs, not for all HTML specs.

I am really sick of people writing about things, when they don't even bother reading past the headlines of the news stories they quote.


you are driving a bit too far, my friend.
first, i see absolutely no need to apple to include Mono.
they have their own frameworks.
second, you sound just like a regular windoze user, who are religiously convinced they need embrace whatever M$ gives them.
How is .Net "far superior" than PHP? i'd like to see how you compare and end up with a funny results as such.
third, share your knoweldge with other is great. bashing others with is another issue. note not everyone here is a developer. and most people have no idea about .Net. i could bash you right to hell if you want to talk about music with me.

[jaykk]

As far i know, IBM & MS backed away from W3C to create a Web services standard. I think this is a big news, if you think of it.

here is the news item (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,s2131949,00.html)

[bertagert]

Originally posted by jaykk
Since IE is no longer available as a standalone application, the web is ultimately becomes part of Windows Operating System. Microsoft control 95% of browser market, so they can come up with their own standards. And all the webdevelopers (95% of those who write for IE) will be called Windows Developers since there is no more IE.

Well said!


More bull. You do know that the W3C DOES DO MORE THAN HTML right???

IBM & MS pulled out of the W3C for specific web services security specs, not for all HTML specs.

I am really sick of people writing about things, when they don't even bother reading past the headlines of the news stories they quote.

This doesn't matter if IE is the defacto standard that web developers write for. Microsoft will bring in there own standards again, that web developers will use, and the others browsers out there will take the fall (along with the OS there on). Don't get me wrong, this will take many many years to complete but its exactly what Microsoft is trying to do.

Once that battle is won, Microsoft will go after Java. Microsoft is scared of being taken down. Their tatics suck when beating the competition but I'm not real sure what people can do. MS just has so much damn cash and computers running windows..

[blakespot]

Originally posted by nickgold
Thank freaking god...
Actually, if one were to use a brain to think about this for any length of time, the tragic nature of the departure of IE from the Mac would be realized. This will necessarily hurt the viability of the Mac to some degree. >80% of Internet users use IE and many sites are IE only. You may say they are not worth visiting because they are not cross-browser. That makes no difference. The truth is, this is a dark day for the Macintosh.

Dark indeed.


blakespot

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by macdong
you are driving a bit too far, my friend.
first, i see absolutely no need to apple to include Mono.
they have their own frameworks.
second, you sound just like a regular windoze user, who are religiously convinced they need embrace whatever M$ gives them.
How is .Net "far superior" than PHP? i'd like to see how you compare and end up with a funny results as such.
third, share your knoweldge with other is great. bashing others with is another issue. note not everyone here is a developer. and most people have no idea about .Net. i could bash you right to hell if you want to talk about music with me.

Funny you should say that, I own 3 windows machines, 3 macs, and 3 linux boxes. All bought in the past year. The macs? 1 G4 imac, 2 dual XServes. So before you attack me as a religious windows user, understand that I will use whatever gets the job done best for the proper application.

And while you can do GUI stuff with PHP, its not integrated, PHP without Zend's software is interpreted, not compiled, and is not as powerful as .NET. This is not a proper place to get into discussions on programming, if you want, I can hold a discussion with you. I programmed in PHP for over 2 years. PHP also only has functions to access databases. ADO.NET will automatically build data grids, drop down boxes, etc, when given an in-memory represenation of a table.

I am sorry if I went to far with that statement, but its true. Claiming MS backed out of a W3C proposed standard with IBM is the end of world, when refering to browsers is bull. Why? W3C does many different standards. SOAP web services, which is what MS uses, is open and standard. The W3C standard that they backed out of was a security standard, which was implimented in a MS addon to .NET. MS and IBM have replacement in the works....but the thing is, no security is the default for .NET web services. Thats right, they mostly leave it up to you to impliment yourself. SO WHO CARES that MS left with IBM? So they make a competing standard....no one is required to use it, its not built in, and you can still interop with many .NET SOAP/XML services. So when I complain, its because people here comment before they understand what they are commenting on.....then everyone uses it as THEIR argument as why other technologies are bad. I could go around spouting falsehoods about the mac. I dont. Why? Because I try to understand the technology I work with, and I try to give people facts, not personal beleifs.

[scan300]

Originally posted by gt302

Ok now that you know the issue involved, I want to know if there is an app that will convert my IE archives (in IE's WAFF format) to something that is a more long term solution, Safari would be my preference.

Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) will do a similar job to IE's WAFF archive, except you will have a pdf file, with absolute links, embedded graphics etc. You can't directly convert your WAFF files to this format, but it's a good alternative for a long term solution.

Adobe Acrobat has it's own browser so you can open the web site, to whatever depth you require, it will even capture the whole website. You then just save a pdf file.

You have a lot more options after that, eg exporting just the text, or just the jpegs etc. It's scriptable so you can automate your process, (possibly work out an applescript which opens the page you're looking at in Safari to open and save it in Acrobat as a pdf )

Alternatively, if you don't need the links to work in your archive, OSX allows you to print the current page to a pdf file from whatever app your in, including IE. That will embed all the graphics and layout neatly.

(Oh and Acrobat is not free)

[DeusOmnis]

This sucks to be a mac web dev... well not really, because the mac version was never anything like the windows version.

[DeusOmnis]

By the way, .NET makes php look like a joke. We need some .NET mac apps - to harness the power...

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger
Claiming MS backed out of a W3C proposed standard with IBM is the end of world, when refering to browsers is bull. Why? W3C does many different standards. SOAP web services, which is what MS uses, is open and standard.
For now: don't forget Embrace Extend Extinguish.

The list is quite long...

DOS
HTML
JAVA
Kerberos
COM
OS/2
Pocket PC/Smart Phone

and even stealling :eek: source code :eek::eek::eek:

Open standards mean nothing.
They are just a means to "get in the door"
JAVA can do everything .NET does, (perhaps the dev tools aren't as category specific as VS.NET) but there really is no huge huge advantage that someone ,unless writting for 100% windows, would need to sell thier soul for...something that does what, arguably, is already being done with JAVA.

[inkswamp]

Originally posted by gt302
I have been using IE for some time now to save archives of WebPages. Why?

I've been doing the same thing for some time now and both of us should be kicked in the butt for trusting such data and information to a proprietary MS format. ;)

However, others have already thought about this and beat us to it. I just did some searching on versiontracker tonight and found a little program called WAFInspec that appears to extract Explorer archives into individual files. Very cool. Check it out.

--Rick

[scan300]

I don't think there is a big issue with M$ pulling out of the Web Browser market specifically, the web browser has reached the end of it's development cycle to the point that the current set of innivations are small. The focus is turning to the web capabilities of the whole system (Unix vs M$).

Apple serves Microsoft probably more than it hinders it, by bringing innovations to market and testing the waters. Apple is not the fish M$ is after, the real competition and market share M$ is eyeing off is the server/enterprise system market. It wants to offer the whole widget to business, and it's easy to see a raft of component strategies eventually coming to gether to form the whole: .NET, Palladium, Longhorn. This will be a closed or at least a M$ rights managed system.

Open standards in browsers will matter while M$ is only a player in the Enterpriser/Server market, but when they become the biggest fish, M$ standards will be the only ones that matter.

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by Fukui
For now: don't forget Embrace Extend Extinguish.

The list is quite long...

DOS
HTML
JAVA
Kerberos
COM
OS/2
Pocket PC/Smart Phone

and even stealling :eek: source code :eek::eek::eek:

Open standards mean nothing.
They are just a means to "get in the door"
JAVA can do everything .NET does, (perhaps the dev tools aren't as category specific as VS.NET) but there really is no huge huge advantage that someone ,unless writting for 100% windows, would need to sell thier soul for...something that does what, arguably, is already being done with JAVA.

ROFLMAO......bad bad examples.
Pocket PC? That's MS's own OS, an NT derivative. They didn't embrace or extend anything, totally different platform from Palm. Are you then saying Palm embraced and extended newton?

DOS? Don't make me laugh, Microsoft created it for IBM, then offered to buy it and IBM sold the rights. DOS was theres. Sure there were clones, but MS owned the rights to the real DOS. There were no official standards, but the competing DOS brands did keep up in compatibility and features.

I am not familiar with the changes to Kerbos or COM that MS has done that has upset you.

OS/2 was a stab in the back.

You do realize MS helped design CSS? How about that the only time MS ever added exclusive IE tags was in IE2 while in the most heated part of the browser wars.....and hey....guess what...Netscape was guilty too! They both ignored W3C. And you know what, we all benifited because it showed specialized tags sucked, and they went back to working together on standards.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by Fukui
JAVA
On Windows, sure. There are a lot more Java developers than you think. Java is popular in the server world.
Kerberos
Right out of the box, it's a good thing. My Linux portion works great with Kerberos.
COM
How have they screwed people with COM? COM still works today with .NET. A .NET component can be a COM object and a COM object may be imported into .NET as an object as well. Smoother interoperability.
OS/2
Come on be serious. That was IBM's fault. They charged people ridiculous prices for drivers, programs, etc. Microsoft knew this would lead OS/2's destructions so they quit and carried on to their own version of NT.
and even stealling :eek: source code :eek::eek::eek:Stole what code? The BSD network stack. No, that wasn't stealing. Read the BSD License and come back to me.

Apple did the same thing with BSD. They "stole" FreeBSD and the Mach kernel. But they're Apple, so they're not stealing. Right? :rolleyes: Again, I redirect you to the BSD License.
Open standards mean nothing.
They are just a means to "get in the door"
JAVA can do everything .NET does, (perhaps the dev tools aren't as category specific as VS.NET) but there really is no huge huge advantage that someone ,unless writting for 100% windows, would need to sell thier soul for...something that does what, arguably, is already being done with JAVA.
So basically everything GPL is evil?

Jeez. No Java can't do everything .NET can do, nor can .NET do everything Java can do. Microsoft did it right. Developers! Developers! Developers! If you build it, they will come.

To anyone who is intereted:
I can fully backup dguisinger 100%. He has not done anything wrong/said anything wrong.

macdong: Per your post about PHP vs .NET, you understand that PHP is far less powerful than .NET. .NET is very, very powerful, very, very object oriented, business oriented, made for the programmers' mind. PHP is just a puny script language that can't do as much as .NET can do with data, etc.

[shangodee]

The one thing that should be taken into consideration is that IE was at one time a formidable competitor and dominator of the apple browser contingency. In that sense it spurred competition which is always a positive thing. While IE may have been long dead, losing a once formidable browser is not necessarily entirely benevolent. It's always good to have someone beating down the door, and in the case of a huge developer like microsoft, their knocks are all the more loud. While I don't doubt apple is trying to make safari the best it can, at the same time, losing a powerful developer in some ways may make browser development on the mac platform more lathargic.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by MacCoaster
Per your post about PHP vs .NET, you understand that PHP is far less powerful than .NET. .NET is very, very powerful, very, very object oriented, business oriented, made for the programmers' mind. PHP is just a puny script language that can't do as much as .NET can do with data, etc.

Maybe. Now compare .Net to WebObjects.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by hayesk
Maybe. Now compare .Net to WebObjects.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm sorry, too damn funny.

WebObjects can do just a FRACTION of .NET.

.NET is an entire framework composed of new Win32 API (much cleaner), new ASP.NET (which WebObjects compares, but you can't get the same power/ease of use as ASP.NET), Web Services, etc.

Seriously, has Apple updated WebObjects in a long time? ASP.NET can do so much more in so much less time.

[maxvamp]

I have been reading this very long thread, and I have a few thoughts....

Many people are lamenting the loss of IE on Mac, with thoughts that MS now owns the web, and even go so far as to imply that sites will start severely breaking if you do not use IE.

OK, so in Safari, I don't have those annoying commercials that constantly get in the way when I go to Yahoo, but generally, I have had very little if any problem going to a large variety of site using Safari. At this point, I have found it more compatible than Netscape. When I do find a site that is incorrect, I hit the little bug up in the corner. Apple has done well at fixing many sites on Safari.

The comparison list was a little funny. I am an ex-OS/2'er. OS/2 died simply because IBM dropped support for it. It was comparable in price, and the driver support from IBM was pretty impressive. By version 4 of the product however, IBM decided that there was no more innovative dev cycles going into it. There are still features in Workplace shell that I would like to see in any current OS. In reality the list should have listed Stac, Central Point, and Netscape, since those are the most blatant examples of Microsoft's technique of killing competitors. If they could afford to give away free internet access, I am sure that they would have done so just to kill AOL. I have to wonder though if AOL can react quick enough from MSN's growing strength.

Finally...All those that want to sing the praises of .NET should try writing some serious apps using it. While the framework is very robust for the windows platform, there are many parts of it that really doesn't work well. **In my opinion**, JAVA is still a better general purpose programming platform, if for no other reason, but it's maturity and stability.

Now I am not saying that .NET should be eliminated. It is ( in my mind ) actually kinda wild that you have access to many easy to access Windows APIs from many different scripting and programming languages. It is just at this point, I am generally terrified to apply any service pack for .Net for fear that it breaks my apps. I will more likely feel a little better when .Net V2 comes out, and MS starts porting it to other Platforms ( planned ).

Every languages has proven that it has a place, and there is no end all to beat all. People here want to say that .NET beats the crud out of BASIC / PHP / PERL / JAVA / etc. I will remind them that .NET framework can't hold a candle to unmanaged C / C++ / Assembly / DHTML code. ( all can be made web friendly )

In short, be careful when comparing size..someone's might be larger.

One last final thought. For those who think innovation is dead in web browsers, try right clicking on a word ( in Safari ) the next time you post. I know of no other browsers where I can spell check forms. MS has stopped developing IE because they have perfected the ability to put TV commercials on web sites.

Max

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by maxvamp
The comparison list was a little funny. I am an ex-OS/2'er. OS/2 died simply because IBM dropped support for it. It was comparable in price, and the driver support from IBM was pretty impressive. By version 4 of the product however, IBM decided that there was no more innovative dev cycles going into it. There are still features in Workplace shell that I would like to see in any current OS. In reality the list should have listed Stac, Central Point, and Netscape, since those are the most blatant examples of Microsoft's technique of killing competitors. If they could afford to give away free internet access, I am sure that they would have done so just to kill AOL. I have to wonder though if AOL can react quick enough from MSN's growing strength.
No, OS/2 died because IBM decided to drop it due to the fact that NO ONE was buying it! Their stuff was too expensive.
Finally...All those that want to sing the praises of .NET should try writing some serious apps using it. While the framework is very robust for the windows platform, there are many parts of it that really doesn't work well. **In my opinion**, JAVA is still a better general purpose programming platform, if for no other reason, but it's maturity and stability.
I develop in .NET as well. I develop all kinds of serious applications, web backends, etc. Microsoft used it to program Visual Studio .NET (entirely in .NET), their massive sites, their next version of Windows basically has all basic programs done in .NET. Please don't tell me .NET isn't for serious development.

What parts don't work well. I'd like to know.

Java is indeed a better "general purpose" programming platform for the time being. But one already has a robust framework on a robust OS (Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP) so it's useful right out of the box. Mono is coming along very well. They already have mcs programmed in C# and several people have already started programming seriously on Mono with GTK# and QT#. So it's getting as flexible as Java.
Now I am not saying that .NET should be eliminated. It is ( in my mind ) actually kinda wild that you have access to many easy to access Windows APIs from many different scripting and programming languages. It is just at this point, I am generally terrified to apply any service pack for .Net for fear that it breaks my apps. I will more likely feel a little better when .Net V2 comes out, and MS starts porting it to other Platforms ( planned ).
.NET isn't just Windows API, but a generally defined API by the ECMA.

Why are you terrified to install SPs? They're very well done with .NET. I've gone through .NET 1.0 SP0, then SP1, SP2, then .NET 1.1 SP0 right now.. all are rock solid and it doesn't even break 1.0 programs because of side by side assemblies. Java can't beat that. .NET is definitely Microsoft's most robust piece of framework and software.
Every languages has proven that it has a place, and there is no end all to beat all. People here want to say that .NET beats the crud out of BASIC / PHP / PERL / JAVA / etc. I will remind them that .NET framework can't hold a candle to unmanaged C / C++ / Assembly / DHTML code. ( all can be made web friendly )
You haven't been following .NET, I take. You're wrong about unmanaged code. .NET can do it. You simply state an unsafe code region, but all other code regions are safe. In fact, this is an advantage over Java. You CAN run unmanaged code. You can even mix or match them.

BTW, there's not much web friendliness with Assembly! No one in their right mind would program for the web in such a low level! It's not productive. PHP, PERL involve cumbersome code escaping and its very hard to modularize. That's not friendly to me.

[dguisinger]

For anyone who is interested on why I am a proponent of .NET's data binding capabilities:

// Load the Data

MsSqlDataAdapter da = new MySqlDataAdapter();
da.SelectCommand
= new MsSqlCommand("SELECT * FROM tableA",sqlConnection);
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
da.Fill(ds,"tableA");

// Place in ListBox

ListBoxControl.DataSource = ds;
ListBoxControl.DataMember = "tableA";
ListBoxControl.DataTextField = "columnA";
ListBoxControl.DataValueField = "columnB";
ListBoxControl.DataBind();

// Place in DataGrid, which is a table with columns and rows, which gets built automatically in .NET.
//(Of course, still has flexability for people who want to format, etc)

DataGridControl.DataSource = ds;
DataGridControl.DataMember = "tableA";
DataGridControl.DataKeyField = "columnB";
DataGridControl.AutoGenerateColumns=true;
DataGridControl.DataBind();


See, thats all there is to it. And it gets better, with data set / table views, when using it in a windows form app, instead of a web app, state is stored. Selecting a value in a drop down list, will cause items in other fields to automatically change if they are in a row indexed by the drop down list. a 500 line program can be reduced to 25 lines or less. A Windows Forms app can not only show the data, but automatically update the dataset, and all you have to do is provide the SQL syntax and data adapter update command to UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE the specific database entry corresponding the the UI data. Talk about slick.


Plus I ask anyone with experience with Web Objects, or PHP for that matter.

Do you work with web pages on the server side using an event model?

ListControl.OnSelectedIndexChanged = new EventHandler(this.OnListControlChange)

Its how you do GUI programming. Its how you do ASP.NET programming. While I don't know about WebObjects, I can tell you for a fact, PHP is not done this way. There is one entry point. No event driven interaction. Infact, PHP works on echo/print statements. .NET works on controls, which render their output to HTML, and post back events when clicked, or selections are changed, allowing for GUI style event-driven programming.

As for the question of how it compares to WebObjects, that may answer some, however: It doesnt compare. .NET is the equivilent in the Mac world of Java + Cocoa + WebObjects + XML combined into one, plus better integrated, more cleanly implimented, and much better documented (*ahem* cocoa)

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger
ROFLMAO......bad bad examples.
Pocket PC? That's MS's own OS, an NT derivative. They didn't embrace or extend anything, totally different platform from Palm. Are you then saying Palm embraced and extended newton?

PocketPC Smartphone...ever heard of sendo? Hmm, stole thier designs and gave'em to a bunch of cheap Taiwanese manufacturers, once sendo realized what MS was doing to their "manufacturing partner" it was too late, and now thier stuck in litigation, MS loves litigation, the ultimate stalling tactic.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7015
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/28677.html

DOS? Don't make me laugh, Microsoft created it for IBM, then offered to buy it and IBM sold the rights. DOS was theres. Sure there were clones, but MS owned the rights to the real DOS. There were no official standards, but the competing DOS brands did keep up in compatibility and features.

Uh, MS BOUGHT DOS, anybody knows that.
And, there were many OS that were some kind of DOS there was even an apple dos for the Apple 2, I have the diskette!! All MS did was snuff out competition like DR-DOS unfairly because of thier market position.

I am not familiar with the changes to Kerbos or COM that MS has done that has upset you.
Proprietary exentions to Kerboeros Authentication used in Active Directory.
http://www.chguy.net/news/mar00/embraceanddeform.html

COM was touted as an "open" API, then came along COM+, whops :D I guess after everyone fell for the open COM; COM+ appeard and wasn't submitted...
http://www.pacificspirit.com/Authoring/ObjectMag-comparison/Comparison.html

Quote:COM+ can be considered closed because the relationship between Microsoft and the ActiveX standards body is unclear, and it appears that Microsoft is not required to implement anything the body specifies

OS/2 was a stab in the back.
No, Win95/NT4 was a stab in the back.
IBM did most of the work!

[dguisinger]

Fukul

First off, I agreed with you on OS/2. Read carefully.


Second, what I said about IBM & MS & DOS was:

MS developed PC-DOS for IBM. I beleive Bill Gate's mother knew someone at IBM, if the story I heard was right, and got him the in.

Bill Gates realized how important DOS was and offered to buy it. IBM sold it to them, dumb move. IBM then continued to license it as PC-DOS.

DR Dos, yes I had it...DR DOS 6 which had GEM as its shell. GEM lost to Windows 3.1 as a DOS windowing shell.

Big whoop, lots of companies tried. There was DesqView X as well which ran Win3.0 and X-Windows apps, amazing someftware.

But MS only screwed IBM by not telling them they were secretly working on Windows 3 behind their backs.

Windows for SmartPhones. We will see, there are aligations. I can tell you MS has so many different platforms that compete on the same devices, that their current software might have came from a totally unrelated development group. No wrong doing if so.

COM+ and ActiveDirectory are OS level technologies. You are never required to base everything off standards. AFP from Apple wasn't, nor was SMB from Microsoft.

Again, like many things, for the most part COM+ is additions developers request. You don't need to use COM+, no one is forcing you. You can still use COM just fine.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by MacCoaster
On Windows, sure. There are a lot more Java developers than you think. Java is popular in the server world.

Tell that to the thousands of consumers that use apps on the web still using the never updated proprietary java in windows. Who cares what happens in the server world, on the desktop, java was killed by MS: by embracing, extending in a proprietary manner, and now, with .NET, extinguishing.

Right out of the box, it's a good thing. My Linux portion works great with Kerberos.
Portion of what???
I'm sure the Kerberos developers had fun reverse-engineering MS's jacked-up version.

tole what code? The BSD network stack. No, that wasn't stealing. Read the BSD License and come back to me.

Apple did the same thing with BSD. They "stole" FreeBSD and the Mach kernel. But they're Apple, so they're not stealing. Right? Again, I redirect you to the BSD License.

Oh, no no no no no...:D Thats not at all what I'm talking about. MS taking the BSD stack is all fine and good, its in with the licence, I dont care about that. I'm talking about being convicted in COURT.

See here: http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24893.html
Fined 3 million francs for software piracy, oh the irony:rolleyes:

So basically everything GPL is evil?
Uh, no, I mean, TO MS, OPEN STANDARDS MEAN NOTHING, they are just used to get dev suckered in, then they close the door and weld it shut behind them.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger

Bill Gates realized how important DOS was and offered to buy it. IBM sold it to them, dumb move. IBM then continued to license it as PC-DOS.

I'm not sure about that, IBM had no OS to use on its new PCs so they asked MS for one, they bought it from some guy in seattle...ask yourself this, why would IBM of all companies sell thier OS to MS to develop when they were looking for an OS?? Answer: they didnt have one.

[dguisinger]

No, Win95/NT4 was a stab in the back.
IBM did most of the work! [/B]

Actually, if I remember correctly, OS/2 and NT were not related very closely.

Win32 asn't related that much either.

However, there was cross licensing.
Remember OS/2 did gain officially licensed Windows 3.0 compatibility.

Also, the Win16 & Win32 APIs were ass-backwards in their bitmap handling due to input from IBM. IBM's coordinate system was flipped from the Windows coordinate system. Yet, Microsoft used the same bitmap file / memory format that they jointly developed in Windows...and do to this day. It is interesting that a bitmap is pretty much stored backwards.

As far as who worked on both. IBM and MS worked equally on OS/2 2.0, which was MS's last version of OS/2 they supported.

There was apparently a lot of infighting in the ranks between IBM and Microsoft. Microsoft developed Windows 3.0 as a side project, and didn't tell IBM until it was nearly ready and shocked all developers who MS had already told OS/2 was the future. Remember that Windows 3.0 wasn't that great, it makes me honestly think it was a backup plan to OS/2, and that disagreements between the companies forced Microsoft to abandon the joint project. I had OS/2 2.0. It had short comings. Didn't support my graphics card, which was bad, because you needed to fully boot up to install the graphics drivers. There is a bright idea.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by Fukui
Portion of what???
I'm sure the Kerberos developers had fun reverse-engineering MS's jacked-up version.
When I mean portion, I mean portion of the computer, as in Linux as a whole support my Win network's Kerberos just fine.
See here: http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24893.html
Fined 3 million francs for software piracy, oh the irony:rolleyes:
Interesting, never heard of that. It's probably similar to SCO's claims against IBM (IBM allegedly used SCO's licensed code and distributed them for free in the Linux kernel and other tools).

[dguisinger]

Originally posted by Fukui
I'm not sure about that, IBM had no OS to use on its new PCs so they asked MS for one, they bought it from some guy in seattle...ask yourself this, why would IBM of all companies sell thier OS to MS to develop when they were looking for an OS?? Answer: they didnt have one.

It is a proven fact. IBM contracted Microsoft to build the OS. It was IBM's. IBM had no long term plans for it, in those days computer architecture changed so fast that they probably figured it was worthless in a few years. Microsoft offered to buy the rights to DOS. IBM agreed. You can look it up, its all over the place.

[maxvamp]

Dude.. lets get a few fact's straight...



No, OS/2 died because IBM decided to drop it due to the fact that NO ONE was buying it! Their stuff was too expensive.


Yeah your right... I paid in 1996 ( or abouts ) $159 for Warp 4. That year I also paid $299 for NT 4 workstation with a Kingston memory rebate offer. I was even insane enough to pay $129 for OSX.2. Really, you should get your facts straight. OS/2 was cheaper than Windows 95 retail ( no upgrade pricing allowed here ). I purchased OS/2 v3 , v4 and eComStation from Indelible Blue way back when. What do you call way too expensive?



I develop in .NET as well. I develop all kinds of serious applications, web backends, etc. Microsoft used it to program Visual Studio .NET (entirely in .NET), their massive sites, their next version of Windows basically has all basic programs done in .NET. Please don't tell me .NET isn't for serious development.

What parts don't work well. I'd like to know.



Again .. lets get a few things right. I have been working with Windows 2003 ( the newest OS ), and it's apps *ARE NOT* developed in .NET. There is no way that MS would write any piece of any of their OS in an interpreted language. Even if you want to say that it was written in C++, I would argue that code was unmanaged. MS wants speed, and even in C++ you would have to launch the interpreter to run the Managed code.
For a refresher, .NET will tokenize the code, so once the assembly is compiled the first time ( for that .Net session ) the code will run nearly as fast as native machine code. Still, you don't want to use this in the OS as your apps when you want to impress people with speed and snappiness. Can you name the apps in 2003 that are written against .Net???

.Net isn't for serious development any more than VB is. I doubt you will ever see a file system written in .NET. GOD help us if someone tried. VB and the .Net framework can be used in professional applications however. You will find it influencing assembly lines and laser light shows. You will not find it used to write a virus scanner, or device driver. Define serious.



Why are you terrified to install SPs? They're very well done with .NET. I've gone through .NET 1.0 SP0, then SP1, SP2, then .NET 1.1 SP0 right now.. all are rock solid and it doesn't even break 1.0 programs because of side by side assemblies. Java can't beat that. .NET is definitely Microsoft's most robust piece of framework and software.


Funny, I write a lot of ADO.NET in C# and I started using Beta 1 -> had to basically port my apps for Beta 2 -> and again for .Net V1. I applied .NET SP1, and once again watched my ADO.NET apps break. I have not bothered upgrading any further, since I am tired of fixing these apps. They are internal apps, so I have the luxury of stopping there. I do use VS.Net, and I have to say that, while not perfect, it is a veerryy nice IDE. I have no problems with the dev environment. The framework, I think you give too much credit. I was able ( way back when ) to run 1.0.2 Java apps on a machine with 1.1.4. Many of the APIs were deprecated, but the apps still ran on the newer JREs. Even in the early days =, most Java JREs up through 1.1.8 had some wild bugs. I have a hard time with the implication that .NET is rock solid. If this were true, you wouldn't need service packs.


ou haven't been following .NET, I take. You're wrong about unmanaged code. .NET can do it. You simply state an unsafe code region, but all other code regions are safe. In fact, this is an advantage over Java. You CAN run unmanaged code. You can even mix or match them.

BTW, there's not much web friendliness with Assembly! No one in their right mind would program for the web in such a low level! It's not productive. PHP, PERL involve cumbersome code escaping and its very hard to modularize. That's not friendly to me.

First, unmanaged C++ code contains no .NET calls. Yes you can mix and match, which is one of .NET's charms. The other day, I was even able to write Windows Script files using .NET . My points in my previous comments were based on speed and power. .Net code is not as fast as assembly or unmanaged C or C++. I go to the classes and stay up on the technology. You can write ISAPI web filters in either, but your right, it would be a real bear in either pure C++ or assembly. .Net wins for simplicity and Power. V2 should be nice. Even Java had a lot of problems until V2, and according to some, still does.

Now, address the real issue... What will .Net look like on OSX??

Max

[dguisinger]

Max: Comparing beta 1 and beta 2 to final code is not fair.

Compare final release to final release.

In is an intermediate language, byte code. It is a JIT compiler which caches x86 output unlike Java, so subsequent running is faster.

Infact, I have a book on MSIL assembly language and bytecodes. You could build a processor around it.

I dont know about Windows 2003, however Windows Longhorn the entire Explorer shell is programmed in .NET. Just ask Paul Thurrot, the expert on upcoming Windows releases. www.winsupersite.com.

Visual Studio is also programmed in .NET. There is some bug in visual studio that causes it to crash when the network goes down working on a remote project. I receive the .NET CLR crash output, not the normal Windows crash screen.

[Fukui]

Originally posted by dguisinger
It is a proven fact. IBM contracted Microsoft to build the OS. It was IBM's. IBM had no long term plans for it, in those days computer architecture changed so fast that they probably figured it was worthless in a few years. Microsoft offered to buy the rights to DOS. IBM agreed. You can look it up, its all over the place.
Yea, well, DOS was pretty worthless, especially considering, internally, MS was using UNIX till about NT came around!!!! They could shovel the crap DOS to the consumer, but wansn't good enough for themselves....nice.

[maxvamp]

dguisinger : Your right.. comparing Betas to final is not fair. I expected that when I was writing code pre-release, but when .Net code V1 changed ever so slightly when SP1 was applied, and once again broke my code, I decided to wait for a while ( V2 ).

My points to my threads are these:

.Net is not the most powerful thing out there, and is not suited for absolutely everything, as some want so badly for the readers to believe. To make such statement would be analogous to saying that either the Opteron, or the 970 will kill Intel... Ain't gonna happen.

.Net is a really good / flexable framework, that gets rid of the need for some of MS's previous works ( Win32 API comes to mind ). In honesty, I actually like .NET for a lot of things, but not everything. Perl, Java, C++ all have their place without .Net's help because they work well without it. Let's give those devils their do as well.

just my 8 cents worth.

Max

[dguisinger]

Max:

Would you agree with me on the following (which is what this whole discussion started from)?

1) .NET is not out to destroy the compatibility of browsers

2) Many windows developers (upwards of 50% nowdays) are using .NET in one way or another either on old apps, COM objects, or net apps (web or SWF)

3) Apple would benifit by supporting Mono, which would allow many Windows apps to run natively on OSX (As native as Java) without modification

If those 3 elements are agreed on, then I have no argument with you. What I dont like is people spreading misfacts about anything.

Yes, PHP, Perl, etc has its place. However, they do not nessecarly have the ease of use, and pack the same amount of punch in as little end user code.

As far as your problems, I haven't noticed any. Usually, MS notes differences that break comatibility between service packs in .NET in their change notes.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by maxvamp
Yeah your right... I paid in 1996 ( or abouts ) $159 for Warp 4. That year I also paid $299 for NT 4 workstation with a Kingston memory rebate offer. I was even insane enough to pay $129 for OSX.2. Really, you should get your facts straight. OS/2 was cheaper than Windows 95 retail ( no upgrade pricing allowed here ). I purchased OS/2 v3 , v4 and eComStation from Indelible Blue way back when. What do you call way too expensive?
Right, and OS/2 had how many drivers? NT/W9x had more commercial support and thus worth the $299.
Again .. lets get a few things right. I have been working with Windows 2003 ( the newest OS ), and it's apps *ARE NOT* developed in .NET. There is no way that MS would write any piece of any of their OS in an interpreted language.
When did I EVER say Server 2003? I said next version as in Longhorn. They've already ported at least explorer and control panel things to .NET.
Even if you want to say that it was written in C++, I would argue that code was unmanaged. MS wants speed, and even in C++ you would have to launch the interpreter to run the Managed code.
Huh? You launch the interpreter once and it will process any requests as other .NET programs run. It won't be an issue since explorer will have started the interpreter already. It's not exactly an interpreted language, its an intermediate language. It's much lower level than most interpreted languages.
For a refresher, .NET will tokenize the code, so once the assembly is compiled the first time ( for that .Net session ) the code will run nearly as fast as native machine code. Still, you don't want to use this in the OS as your apps when you want to impress people with speed and snappiness. Can you name the apps in 2003 that are written against .Net???
Oh yes I can, my ASP.NET sites, my custom Windows Service module, etc.

You don't have to use .NET for future things, many games are sticking to true C/C++. Once processors are powerful enough for everyone (honestly, I thing a good PC would do fine, my Server 2003 is on a P2 233 and its blazing fast).
.Net isn't for serious development any more than VB is. I doubt you will ever see a file system written in .NET. GOD help us if someone tried. VB and the .Net framework can be used in professional applications however. You will find it influencing assembly lines and laser light shows. You will not find it used to write a virus scanner, or device driver. Define serious.
No you define serious. I don't define serious as in what level of th OS it is involved in, but how much influence it has on a person's daily computing.

Filesystems can't be written in .NET. They're block devices and follow certain schema.

You just proved why .NET will be successful.. it is meant to improve the end user's experience along with the developers. I seriously hope that most apps for Windows in the next few years are being migrated to .NET if possible. It's great for end user applications and back end code.

Funny, I write a lot of ADO.NET in C# and I started using Beta 1 -> had to basically port my apps for Beta 2 -> and again for .Net V1. I applied .NET SP1, and once again watched my ADO.NET apps break. I have not bothered upgrading any further, since I am tired of fixing these apps. They are internal apps, so I have the luxury of stopping there. I do use VS.Net, and I have to say that, while not perfect, it is a veerryy nice IDE. I have no problems with the dev environment. The framework, I think you give too much credit. I was able ( way back when ) to run 1.0.2 Java apps on a machine with 1.1.4. Many of the APIs were deprecated, but the apps still ran on the newer JREs. Even in the early days =, most Java JREs up through 1.1.8 had some wild bugs. I have a hard time with the implication that .NET is rock solid. If this were true, you wouldn't need service packs.
You can't count Beta. Sorry. I've developed apps from final 1.0 to 1.1, absolutely no breakages and I use ADO.NET all the time.
First, unmanaged C++ code contains no .NET calls. Yes you can mix and match, which is one of .NET's charms. The other day, I was even able to write Windows Script files using .NET . My points in my previous comments were based on speed and power. .Net code is not as fast as assembly or unmanaged C or C++. I go to the classes and stay up on the technology. You can write ISAPI web filters in either, but your right, it would be a real bear in either pure C++ or assembly. .Net wins for simplicity and Power. V2 should be nice. Even Java had a lot of problems until V2, and according to some, still does.
When did I *ever* say that unmanaged C++ had .NET calls? No. You make a region in a .NET app unsafe and thus.. gasp.. unmanaged.

And when did I ever say that .NET apps were faster than assembly? I'm talking about PRODUCTIVITY. I can get an ASP.NET site up and running really quick, but in Assembly it'd take YEARS. Not worth it.
Now, address the real issue... What will .Net look like on OSX??
If the mono guys are able to keep up on OS X, it could have cocoa bindings, SWF->Cocoa, etc. I'd love to have ASP.NET running on Apache on OS X. That has nothing to do with UI look, really. Just the ability to do it.

[maxvamp]

Would you agree with me on the following (which is what this whole discussion started from)?

1) .NET is not out to destroy the compatibility of browsers

2) Many windows developers (upwards of 50% nowadays) are using .NET in one way or another either on old apps, COM objects, or net apps (web or SWF)

3) Apple would benefit by supporting Mono, which would allow many Windows apps to run natively on OSX (As native as Java) without modification

If those 3 elements are agreed on, then I have no argument with you. What I don't like is people spreading misfacts about anything.

Yes, PHP, Perl, etc has its place. However, they do not necessarily have the ease of use, and pack the same amount of punch in as little end user code.

As far as your problems, I haven't noticed any. Usually, MS notes differences that break comatibility between service packs in .NET in their change notes.

1.) I completely agree. MS wanted to actually kill JAVA on the Windows platform and expand an edge to harm LINUX in the process. MS now has the ability to pick and choose what platforms it will port .NET to. I do get aggravated when they use advanced features of IE6 to interrupt my browsing. This is more DHTML, and there is a real reason that Microsoft will not offer a Block Popups option. It's the same reason Tivo got sued... MS can control web browsing without .NET
2.) There are way to many VB and C++ developers out there that have not, and will not upgrade. For VB 6 developers, it is even worse because the language changed rather dramatically for .NET. I think 50% is really aggressive. I might be more inclined to say 20 to 30%. Even then, it isn't web developers, but Intranet developers where that number would be much higher. Corporate Networks can afford to standardize on a set of technologies.

Apple would benefit from making sure they do everything possible **NOT** to be able to run Win32 apps. When they do this, they are now chasing MS on every little change they make. Apple would start knowing the fear of applying Service Packs. IBM had this exact problem, when MS decided that they were going to require Wins32 in Windows 3.1 apps.

Apple needs to encourage, or develop applications that can compete with the Windows platform. I think so far, they are doing pretty good. Look at Safari, and OSX...Better yet, Compare Adobe Premier to FCP ( all aspects, not just speed.

I guess at some point we must agree to disagree.

Max

[Fukui]

Originally posted by MacCoaster
You just proved why .NET will be successful.. it is meant to improve the end user's experience along with the developers. I seriously hope that most apps for Windows in the next few years are being migrated to .NET if possible. It's great for end user applications and back end code..
Better than what, we already have Java and had OPENSTEP now cocoa that achieves the same things that .NET aims to help... if it were from any other company .NET/C# wouldn't succeed because they are trying to address a problem already solved, but because of MS's MNPLY it probably will get shoved down our throats eventually.

[maxvamp]

Dude... you are off base and starting to sound like a zealot ( usually more fluff than fact ). .NET will not rule the world, and will not replace C++ on OSs. I know of many parts of Windows where .Net will not improve the end user's experience, only the coder will, and a good coder can do that in many different ways and languages. The best GUI coders I know avoid .Net like the plague, primarily due to performance of .NET. Furthermore, why is it that Win2003 runs poorly on my dual 550 with 512MB, yet screams on your 233, a machine that does not meet the recommended minimum requirements? If I didn't know better, I would say that you are on the MS dole for the role of HypeMaster.

One other thing..

OS/2 HAS ALWAYS HAD MORE drivers that Windows NT. Windows NT 4 workstation was only worth $299 because that is what MS charged. It actually sold fewer copies than OS/2. It also was less compatible with the Windows apps of the time, since most were 16 Bit. Your argument of OS/2 was too expensive does not hold water. It was cheaper than all Windows. IBM had a chance to save it, but chose not to. IBM does many amazingly stupid things like that. Only recently, they sold off their HD division. Wait to see how that bites them. You lost your argument drop it.

.Net is really good when used in it's proper context. It is not, nor ever will be the absolute programming solution. Can't be, as MS will need to sell a newer technology in a few years that solves the short comings of .Net.

Max

[bdkennedy1]

...it's called MSN.

[RandomDeadHead]

GOOD:cool:

[Trimix]

okay, i admit i said 'to hell with ie'.
then i read all your comments on how other browsers might not work in certain areas of the www. you got me worried
i have only been using ie so far (don't flame me), so i downloaded CAMINO and tried it on my bank (credit suisse).
and it worked - and much faster
so in my mind even if there is no ie in future, then that would make the inital purchase of a new mac a little cheaper, no ? apple need not pay any fees for an ie licence, or am i wrong ?
in any event, if apple now can produce an office package which allows for troublefree sharing of excel and word files with pceees, then in my book my mac will be m$-free (yeah, i have to get rid of entourage too)
i am not a poweruser, but my business depends on my computer to perform without any hiccups, and the only one that fits the requirement so far has been apple.
p.s. logged in via CAMINO :)

[blakespot]

Originally posted by shangodee
The one thing that should be taken into consideration is that IE was at one time a formidable competitor and dominator of the apple browser contingency. In that sense it spurred competition which is always a positive thing. While IE may have been long dead, losing a once formidable browser is not necessarily entirely benevolent. It's always good to have someone beating down the door, and in the case of a huge developer like microsoft, their knocks are all the more loud. While I don't doubt apple is trying to make safari the best it can, at the same time, losing a powerful developer in some ways may make browser development on the mac platform more lathargic.

IE is still far and away the most widely used browser on the Mac.


blakespot

[Panther]

Couple of things...
Originally posted by MacCoaster
I develop in .NET as well. I develop all kinds of serious applications, web backends, etc. Microsoft used it to program Visual Studio .NET (entirely in .NET), their massive sitesActually most (90%?) of VS.NET is written in C++ using low level COM interfaces to hook back into the CLR. You smack into this if you ever try to write an extension that hooks into VS.NET (say, to add a new kind of docking panel).

Also MS is quite behind the curve in moving their site to .NET. MSN is pretty far along, but MS.COM is a long way behind.

I work on www.dell.com, and the main site has been built using .NET since June 2001 (it is turned into static .htm files before being pushed live), and all but one of Dell's US-site live apps will be ASP.NET based by the end of the year (the other one is Java based). The apps on the Dell Canada site has been live on .NET for a year... from the System configuration tool (http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&kc=11111&l=en&oc=OCDIMXPS_MIN_DHSXPSMIN) through to the Basket and Checkout...

And to folks saying ".NET isn't used to build real applications", Dell.com has $50M a day going through it, which is pretty darn real.

Before everyone starts calling me a troll... I consider myself a Mac guy, my main home system is a dual 1.2 PowerMac, and I have developed several apps in Cocoa. I have a Dell Precision workstation next to my Mac, but its been switched off the past 3 months :p

.NET isn't just Windows API, but a generally defined API by the ECMA.... it was actually defined by MS and submitted to ECMA. And its only the C# and CLS that was submitted (CLS is the Common Language Specification ... basically the standards for language interoperability at the object level).

[dguisinger]

And to folks saying ".NET isn't used to build real applications", Dell.com has $50M a day going through it, which is pretty darn real.

[/B]

Exactly, it is ready for the real world. However I'd beg to differ on the Visual Studio issue. The compiler is 100% written in C#. And most of the Visual Studio IDE is written in C#. There may be some legacy COM components, but porting to .NET isn't that hard. I know that Visual Studio is in .NET, because when Visual Studio crashes, I get the CLR runtime crash dialog, not the Windows XP dialog. And for somereason, Microsoft's own developers claim i experience a bug few others do, so they wont fix it, but it crashes several times a day when the network slows down while accessing my ASP.NET projects. So I see the dialog enough to know that, when Visual Studio .NET accesses files, it is using .NET. If it uses .NET to read files for display, and .NET to compile, I am pretty sure most of it is in .NET.

[maxvamp]

Panther... Thank you for the clarifications on what VS.Net was written in. I would like to ask a question though... When Dell uses .NET is it to rewrite all of their applications? The claim I made was that 'serious' applications will not be / are not being written in .NET. My point is that I know that Backup Apps, Databases, and even Quicken will never be written in .NET. .Net's primary target right now is empowering the web by offering better interfaces for ecommerce. I have to ask...When you say DELL is pumping $50Mil... are you talking about the work you have seen/done on the web sights, or are we talking about every app DELL uses. I suspect that it is from the Web site to the assembly line...maybe a little into inventory management if Dell was really aggressive. After all, SQL 2000 would be at the heart of that system.

dguisinger: Did you read what Panther said??? He flatly said VS.NET is not written in C#/.NET but instead it is/was written in C++, which I agree. You complain when your projects crash, and you see a different pop-up dialog. That does not mean that it is written in .NET or C#, it just means that the app has custom dialog boxes. Lets see what pops up when the CLR crashes. You will see something that better resembles Access Violations or asserts that reference a .DLL ( not a .NET component ).

Lastly - of the 5 biggest software companies out there, I know that 4 of them absolutely are not embracing .NET. MS is the only one, and then not across the board.


.NET is fairly great but not perfect...Now, when is it coming to OSX and HP-UX?

Max

[celaurie]

Shame that. NOT!

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by RHutch
Web designing is not my job, but when I read basic books on building web pages, they all said to test with different browsers to make sure that things would look correct as often as possible. I thought that professionals should test with different browsers too. This says so much about M$'s control in this area.

I do tons of web development work, and it is a huge irk with me if people don't check their web sites on various browsers on different platforms. I think any web designer who only caters to IE needs to be shot (after being beaten and tortured that is).

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by rog
We all know the current administration loves a good monopoly.
Was that a political comment in a mac forum or am I just farting lollipops?

[Panther]

Originally posted by maxvamp
Panther... Thank you for the clarifications on what VS.Net was written in. I would like to ask a question though... When Dell uses .NET is it to rewrite all of their applications? The claim I made was that 'serious' applications will not be / are not being written in .NET. My point is that I know that Backup Apps, Databases, and even Quicken will never be written in .NET.I'd say I disagree on this point. The CLR is present in Yukon (next version of SQL Server) allowing you to write stored procs in C# or whatever (Objective CAML anyone?). You can also expect to see most of the supplied apps in Longhorn (next Windows) to be in .NET because they building the CLR into the OS!

Apps such as backup apps will always need some low level components written in C++ or assembly because they need to talk to system drivers, but the UI could be in .NET just as much of the UI in OSX in written in Cocoa (.NET code ends up getting JITted to assembly instructions, and is actually faster than C++ for some things (memory allocations being one, because .NET allocates from free space and cleans up later, not having to worry about finding the first free block of the necessary size)

.Net's primary target right now is empowering the web by offering better interfaces for ecommerce. I have to ask...When you say DELL is pumping $50Mil... are you talking about the work you have seen/done on the web sights, or are we talking about every app DELL uses. I suspect that it is from the Web site to the assembly line...maybe a little into inventory management if Dell was really aggressive. After all, SQL 2000 would be at the heart of that system.For everything else I'd say its a mixture, as I'm sure it is in most places that have legacy VB/ASP stuff

He flatly said VS.NET is not written in C#/.NET but instead it is/was written in C++, which I agree. You complain when your projects crash, and you see a different pop-up dialog. That does not mean that it is written in .NET or C#, it just means that the app has custom dialog boxes.Its not all C++... Its probably 10% or so CLR based, or at least it was in the first iteration. VS.NET may have more CLR-based code.

Bear in mind when .NET came along the VS team was pretty far along with their next version. Being the tools team, when .NET surfaced within MS it fell to them to totally change their roadmap and retool.

The CLR team was able to give them the core compiler, and the parser pieces the syntax highlighting is based on, but most of the windowing system, editor, debugger, help system, Intellisense features and dialog boxes are written in C++, not using .NET at all.

The thing to remember is that .NET is not a totally isolated world. It was originally started as COM+ 3.0 -- if you look at COM 3.0 roadmap slides from 4 years ago you'll see talk of garbage collection and the like. Along the way other teams came on board such as what is now the ASP.NET team, but deep under the covers it is still a COM system.
.NET is fairly great but not perfect...Now, when is it coming to OSX and HP-UX?I see projects such as Mono as interesting intellectual exercises, but I don't think true porting will come about unless MS itself decides to do it. MS was working on .NET for four years or so. They started on V2 18 months ago and it won't ship for another year. The problem with Mono is that it will always be 12 to 18 months behind the "mother ship", and MS doesn't have to make it easy for them if they don't want to.

I'd love to be able to use the WinForms classes to write MacOS apps, or write ASP.NET apps that ran against Apache, but I'm holding my breath either.

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by avus
This is slightly off the subject, but I think that MS will discontinue Windows Media for Mac next.

Sure, you can say that it is not worth watching/listening if something is broadcasted in Windows Media - actually I hate it too and I am continually amazed how bad it really is - but remember that the only streaming media carrying the recent introduction of the new iPod and the iTMS was Windows Media by MSNBC! There are some contents you've got to see even in Windows Media.
Yeah, I recently tried to get a video of Jeff Gordon swapping rides with an F1 driver, and, what do you know, there is a worse format out there than WMV. It's called Real, and every time I can't get it to work (such as this time) I use the WMV version. Sadly, Real seems to be considered more standard than Quicktime, even though it totally blows.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by myrdred23
OS X still has 6 or so browsers available.

I think Mac OS X has the most browsers of any OS I can think of. Here are the browsers I have on my machine (not counting version numbers like Netscape 4, 6, 7).

Camino
Firebird
iCab
IE
Lynx
Mozilla
Netscape
Omniweb
Opera
Safari

I count 10 different browsers there. Camino, Omniweb, iCab and Safari are Mac-only. What Windows-only browsers are out there? Well, there was Phoenix/Firebird, but that is on OS X now, too.

[maxvamp]

Yukon may have integrated CLR capabilities, but am I to understand that YUKON and beyond will actually be written in .NET? Will the next version of Exchange beyond Exchange 2003 be written in .NET? Will I have to launch the CLR to start my services?

When I mentioned DBs not being written in .NET, I should have specified that the engine itself. I would be heavily surprised if hardcore apps such as Backup used .NET even for the GUI. Many developers tried this route with JAVA, as it made similar claims, only for it to be disastrous. You see many of the claims made for JAVA were very similar to what I hear today on this board with .NET. My favorite from JAVA hype was that JAVA could run faster than C++ because the JVM optimized the final code for the processor it was running on. While theoretically this may be true, I doubt anyone has ever seen this in action. Bytecode is not and will never be faster than well written C++. Only the claims will come out faster.

I want to expand my view of where .NET will go and how apps will be written.

I see that VB programmers and web designers will eventual move to .NET when writing on Windows. This alone will be over 80% of all Windows developers. Microsoft will include ways for this to happen in all of their products. They realize that that is a large portion of their current non-.NET programming base. This is a current reality. I doubt may commercial applications will be re-written in .NET just to claim they wrote it in .NET. Quicktime, Real, Quicken, SQL Server, Lotus, Any enterprise backup app, ( and most consumer ones too ) games, and most other things I would find down at CompUSA, will not be written or re-written. Most enterprise apps ( sold to companies, and not written internally ) will not be rewritten. Internal corporate apps, Internets, and shareware most likely will be the dominant market.

Apple on the other hand will find Cocoa used in all newer apps, as Carbon becomes more antiquated. The Apple platform has few options, where on Windows, there are a ton of different interfaces to write to, and nearly as many MS tweaked languages to write them in.

This is my opinion based on all the goofy crap I have seen MS do in the past, and I stand by it. If people want to read that I am saying .Net will not be successful , then I am sorry they mis-read my comments. I feel that it will only be successful in certain areas, and will not buy the bull that everything in the future will be rewritten just to say 'I wrote it in .NET'. I have heard this hype before, and I am positive I will hear it again.

For those of us who write in .NET, we can enjoy it, and apply it where applicable, and for those who write in JAVA and C++, we can write where it makes sense too.

In all honestly, this is a Mac board, and .Net is not here. When it gets here, lets talk more.

Max

P.S. MS apps I have seen on the on Mac OSX generally perform much poorer than other apps similar apps written for OSX. IE falls in the category, and I for one will not be sorry to see it leave. On Windows IE is the fastest around, and I think that both of these are by design.

Max

[sparks9]

IE never really was any good on the mac.. ihope safari will be the best browser ever for mac.

[MacKid]

Originally posted by avus
This is slightly off the subject, but I think that MS will discontinue Windows Media for Mac next.

Sure, you can say that it is not worth watching/listening if something is broadcasted in Windows Media - actually I hate it too and I am continually amazed how bad it really is - but remember that the only streaming media carrying the recent introduction of the new iPod and the iTMS was Windows Media by MSNBC! There are some contents you've got to see even in Windows Media.

That doesn't mean our old version won't disappear. . .and MS would catch judicial HELL if they made stopped and made future files incompatible with the mac version. (i.e. making a patch that made all future file saves as .wmvv or a different file structure.

[MacKid]

One thing I have to say is the same thing I said about the Windows Media Player thing: Just because it will stop being made doesn't mean that our old Version 5 will magically disappear!!!

People need to realize that we still have it. Whether in your Applications folder, in the Trash, or already deleted and only on your Software Restore CD's, we still have IT!!! :rolleyes:

[ColoJohnBoy]

Praise the Lord! IE is the most obnoxious software Microsoft has ever devised. Slow, excessively complicated, intrusive...... it simply doesn't come close to Safari, Mozilla, or even Netscape.

[ColoJohnBoy]

Just saw this article on Yahoo! news. Take a look, it's worth a read.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030614/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_macintosh_3

[jaykk]

According to yahoo article, M$ doesnt see any value added with IE, but Office suite makes money and continue to develop. But looks like if Apple brings out another Office package, that will be gone too. Apple saw this one coming, so they went ahead and introduced Safari, i bet next is Office Suite..may be we can see it as well in WWDC.

[scan300]

Originally posted by jaykk
But looks like if Apple brings out another Office package, that will be gone too. Apple saw this one coming, so they went ahead and introduced Safari, i bet next is Office Suite..may be we can see it as well in WWDC.

Apple has always had an office compatible package: Claris/Appleworks. It even had presentation software, before Keynote.

But that's not enough. To convince new users that their Mac is compatible with Windows with respect to office apps, you need to offer the '100% compatible' M$ Office package. Most users don't want a complicated explanation of how to make a Mac compatible with their work set-up, they want it to be visually and operationally the same. (eg type it, save it, post it)

Though there is a groundswell in office-compatible alternatives, you won't see people jumping off the Office bandwagon in droves. For that to happen M$ needs to stuff-up big time.

[Sabenth]

Didnt M$ make a big mistake on the net front before they got it right they nearly didnt have I.E as netscape was winning the war on browsers it was only that M$ Had cash flow the size of an affrican country to balance out the odds and take over the world. as usual thats what it comes down too Money and lots of it...


I.E is been striped from windows users mac users and anyone else who wants it .. you have to buy the new M$ longhorn for an updated verison which wont be too long away there is somthing brewing at M$ AND IT AINT GOING TO BE PRITTY........

[Aqua OS X]

Having IE on a Mac is something that was/is very very useful for Mac web developers. This bites.

[PowerBook User]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ColoJohnBoy
[B]Just saw this article on Yahoo! news. Take a look, it's worth a read.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030614/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_macintosh_3

Isn't it funny how Microsoft doesn't want to develop IE anymore because Apple has better access to the Mac OS? I'm sure that's completely different than MS having better access to Windows than Netscape/AOL.:rolleyes:

[Rower_CPU]

Here's one source that shows how much Safari has eaten away at IE's dominance of the Mac browser market share.

MacEdition - CodeBitch January 27th (http://www.macedition.com/cb/cb_20030127.php)

Way back in January IE was dead in the water. Once Safari goes GM it will be included with the OS install and IE will go away.

IE was good for its time (2-3 years ago). It has since stagnated and is doing more to hold back the advancement of Mac browsing than further it. Let it go, people.

[VIREBEL661]

Granted, I know different browsers work differently, BUT...

Does it REALLY matter what browser you're using? I mean, theoretically, if HTML is coded correctly - it SHOULD work on everything. I KNOW this isn't always the case, and always test my websites on multiple browsers as well as windoze...

I use Safari primarily now too (far better than anything else I've tried IMHO) - and there are some problems - hopefully they'll be fixed...

I REALLY WANT a standalone browser of Mozilla or Netscape for OS X.... I haven't had any luck in finding these, even though it says there is one on the Mozilla website... I emailed them, no response... Does anyone have any suggestions?

REMEBER the article mentions no more standalone IE for windoze, either.... SOOOOOOO, it seems to me that if you're not running the latest operating system from M$, you won't be able to update your IE, right? Maybe they're getting out of the browser business? I dunno....

[visor]

Originally posted by MacSlut


I also have a Downloads button which automatically opens my downloads folder showing.


Hey, that is a very bright idea. Just did that for my Safari cause I really missed that button.
Took me about 30 seconds to do so....
(drag and drop a file from the dl folder, bookmark it, edit the bookmark so that the folder opens, not the file)

[visor]

Originally posted by macdong

How is .Net "far superior" than PHP? i'd like to see how you compare and end up with a funny results as such.
third, share your knoweldge with other is great. bashing others with is another issue. note not everyone here is a developer. and most people have no idea about .Net. i could bash you right to hell if you want to talk about music with me.

well, i don't know anything about .Net - but you really shouldn' compare it to PHP.

PHP is a completely different approach to webpage programming. it is also very infirior when it comes to oop, high performance apps including memory caching, scalability... you name it.
the only thing php is really good at, is talking to mysql, and having a fairly good online documentation.

[pozytron]

Originally posted by Nermal
Interesting, I program in ASP.NET, and my web apps appear fine in IE for Win, look at little bit strange in IE for Mac, and look horrible in Safari. However, I've found that manually adjusting the size of any controls you put on the page can cause layout issues - if you leave them at the default sizes then they usually end up fine. Ugh, you program in ASP? ASP.NET? Blasphemy! I strictly code in PHP and MySQL for my web development and my web apps look great on all platforms (yes, I've tested them on Windows). PHP is a much faster, cheaper, and IMO more elegant and superior solution to web development.

On the IE issue... if so-called "web designers" who get paid lots of money to design sites spend all their time incorporating flashy but not compliant DHTML menus that only work in one version of one browser on one operating system, they are arrogant jerks. Have you ever heard of a braille terminal or a screen reader? Blind people have NO CHOICE but to use these technologies and the web is basically inaccessable to them. If you are a web developer, do the world a favor and test for accessability and compliance. (Use PHP too!)

Also, for those still using IE to access specific sites, it might not always be that Safari can't handle the site, just that the site kicks them out. Check the Debug menu in Safari and set your useragent to Windows MSIE 6.0 and try again. Those of you using OmniWeb can change your useragent pretty easily too in the preferences.

[pozytron]

Originally posted by visor
well, i don't know anything about .Net - but you really shouldn' compare it to PHP.

PHP is a completely different approach to webpage programming. it is also very infirior when it comes to oop, high performance apps including memory caching, scalability... you name it.
the only thing php is really good at, is talking to mysql, and having a fairly good online documentation. Have you ever used PHP? I doubt it, because that's blatantly not true. ASP is the language to compare to PHP. PHP can do FAR more than connect to MySQL and has OOP support (which I've used). The apps are very scalable, because of their speed. Also, ASP is proprietary, costs money, and is only supported on one operating system for servers. PHP is open source and works on most (if not all) major webservers.

[j763]

Originally posted by pozytron
Have you ever used PHP? I doubt it, because that's blatantly not true. ASP is the language to compare to PHP. PHP can do FAR more than connect to MySQL and has OOP support (which I've used). The apps are very scalable, because of their speed. Also, ASP is proprietary, costs money, and is only supported on one operating system for servers. PHP is open source and works on most (if not all) major webservers.

indeed!

[pozytron]

Originally posted by VIREBEL661
I REALLY WANT a standalone browser of Mozilla or Netscape for OS X.... I haven't had any luck in finding these, even though it says there is one on the Mozilla website... I emailed them, no response... Does anyone have any suggestions?Uh, you can download Mozilla here (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.4rc1/mozilla-mac-MachO-1.4rc1.dmg.gz) and Netscape 7 here (http://info.netscape.com/fwd/bduothr/http://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.02/mac/macosx/sea/Netscape-macosX.smi.bin). :)

[NNO-Stephen]

no matter how you slice it, overall, the lack of IE on Mac is a bad thing for Apple. The switch campagin has a lot to say about most Windows apps on OS X, but if many are dead in the water such as Windows Media Player and IE, and probobly Office and MSN messenger, that takes a lot of the ease of switching away.

I personally dont give a rats ass about the lack of IE, but for potential switchers this is bad news. Unless Apple releases Safari for Windows and Linux and it becomes widely adopted, then IE will be the browser of choice for most users because there is nobody that's really giving IE a run for their money.

Windows media Player as far as I'm concerned is already worthless on OS X. yes it will always be here, but it doesn't support WMP9 content and things can only get worse as the OS X version continues to be ignored by the Mac BU. Same goes for the IE we have. yes it will be here, but lacks support for upcomming standards and that will effectively kill it off.

[Marc the Mac]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Sorry, but it wouldn't. Safari needs to aim for simply handling the standards, not attempting to mimic another browser's handling of them.

Browsers emulating IE only helps to stagnate standards adoption and further entrench IE-specific design.

Rower_CPU - of course you are absolutely right. After I posted the comment, I thought I could have said it better. Yes, it is the standards that count. But if MS goes it alone and fudges the standards a little as some are saying in this thread - what will apple do? I think the answer is - move over PC people - get a life and get a mac.

[Panther]

Originally posted by NNO-Stephen
no matter how you slice it, overall, the lack of IE on Mac is a bad thing for Apple. The switch campagin has a lot to say about most Windows apps on OS X, but if many are dead in the water such as Windows Media Player and IE, and probobly Office and MSN messenger, that takes a lot of the ease of switching away.I think this is an important point that most folks here have missed.

At the end of the day, the fact that MS is no longer developing IE outside of the OS should have little or no impact on IE for the Mac, because the latter is developed by the MacBU (Mac Business Unit @ Microsoft) and is a totally different codebase using a totally different rendering engine (the Windows one is called Trident, the Mac one is Tasman).

What is more likely is that MS felt it was no longer worth the investment, and instead you'll see it moved forward by the MSN folks, who are at least getting money back from the folks using it.

Your other point is even more concerning... that of MS Office support. I'm sure to some extent Apple's release of Safari put MS's nose out of joint. With Apple supposedly working on a replacement for AppleWorks (the "Document" word processor, a spreadsheet whose name I forget, KeyNote obviously), my guess is that Office' days on the Mac are probably numbered too (and declining Apple market share gives them the perfect excuse)

At the end of the day, the presence of apps such as Office goes to the heart of the Switcher campaign. If MacOS didn't have Office and other apps compatible with the popular Windows apps, it would be so much harder for them to Switch. And if MS loses Windows sales to Apple as a result (or if the high visibility and core pretence of the campaign gives that impression and hurts MS on Wall St), then at some point BillG may feel that the cost to MS in lost Windows sales outweighs the money they make back selling Office X.

Consider also that in such a world, the only way a new user (that didn't already have Office X installed) could run Word, Excel etc. (in a way that was 100% file compatible) would be to run Virtual PC, which *cough* Microsoft owns... and which you'll need a Windows license for, plus a copy of Office 10/11 for Windows.

The only way Redmond doesn't win would be if, as with Safari, Apple creates alternatives that are so compelling (and ideally, so compatible!) that you don't need Office X, much like nobody is really sweating the demise of IE. While Safari has been a major success in this regard, I'd have to say IMHO Keynote fell well short of the mark (its not bad for a 1.0 product, but its no PowerPoint either)

The danger is that this kind of move, like Corel's decision to abandon Bryce on the Mac (which is also suspect given MS's investment in Corel), may lead to a world where the Mac is once again marginalized solely to the world of DTPers and graphic designers, and loses its appeal with folks @ home that need a system that is compatible with the Wintel stuff their companies make them use (like me!)

:( :( :(

[j763]

I don't think this is worth desparing too much over...

Internet Explorer for the Mac is very different to Internet Explorer for Windows. The feature set is very very different.

For example, IE:mac doesn't have ActiveX support.

If Microsoft are going to try and dominate the web by controlling the browser market, even if we had IE:mac, we'd probably still be excluded.

Point is, IE for mac is an incredibly slow, archaric, unstable and incredibly buggy browser.

You have to wait ages for tables to load, press the stop button like a thousand times to stop a page from loading, sometimes the entire page disappears on you etc.etc.etc.

IE for Mac was already dying a slow death well before work on Safari started. Microsoft never would have added support for .NET. As soon as Netscape fell, it simply wasn't in Microsoft's interest to develop Internet Explorer for the Macintosh.

[Doctor Q]

I was shopping online today using OmniWeb (because the cookie manager comes in handy) and I came to another of those web pages that doesn't work right with some browsers. I switched to Internet Explorer and, as one might expect, it worked fine:

http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/comparison/index.html

However, it also worked in Safari.

[StephL]

Originally posted by Fukui
I'm not sure about that, IBM had no OS to use on its new PCs so they asked MS for one, they bought it from some guy in seattle...ask yourself this, why would IBM of all companies sell thier OS to MS to develop when they were looking for an OS?? Answer: they didnt have one.

You're right. Even though the actual details of the IBM/Microsoft/Digital Research story vary somewhat depending on who writes the story, the undisputed fact is that Microsoft licensed and then purchased Q-DOS from Seattle Computer and renamed it MS-DOS.

As far as Windows is concerned, Microsoft originally positioned it as an operating environment of choice because of OS/2's hefty hardware requirements. So, the plan was for users to run Windows for a few years and then move to OS/2 by 1990. However, when Window 3 sold surprisingly well, Gates decided to ditch OS/2.

[matthew24]

I believe that webdesign will be more and more based on open standards (W3C), if a webdesigner, would test his pages on Safari first he will be sure that it will work on any browser, so why approach it the other way around? So this is the call, don't support MS monopoly since we do have a splendid alternative; W3C. With open standards you could say that being abused by MS becomes a free choice again, just say no.

[curious0]

It seems to me that a number of issues are involved here that have probably been talked abut but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Webdesign

What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7. Microsoft is making a big power play here and they are going to make IE fully intergrated into the OS, what happens then? You must know that managers aren't going to give a **** about being fair, they are going to want product that works on the majority of the market. I don't care if microsoft says they are going to follow the standards, because they are big enough to maniuplate the standards.

I am a web developer and I know many many graphic designers and I really wonder what this means for them. How many work places are going to shift to PC based design platforms?

If I have to develope for the IE in a mac environment at what point am I going to have to test on a PC, at what point is this going to really add steps to the work flow? This is a pain in the ass.

[freddiecable]

well - I'm not sure this is so good. even though I'm personally using Camino - there are some sites only working in IE...in Sweden - this is the case with governmental sites :-(

Maybe I should leave Sweden for - say Cupertino ;)

[DaveGee]

Originally posted by curious0
Webdesign What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7.

As a web designer are you really under the impression that 'if it works in IE for the Mac it will work the same way in IE for Windows'?

Dave

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by curious0
What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7. Microsoft is making a big power play here and they are going to make IE fully intergrated into the OS, what happens then?

IMHO, Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot here because it sees browsers as no longer worth dominating.

What happens when IE only comes with new OS installations? Well, for one, browser innovation at MS falls off a cliff (like it hasn't already). For another, no longer can web designers say "just upgrade to the latest IE and it'll work fine" ... they have to design to the lowest common denominator, which will be IE 6.0 on the PC.

Microsoft has a fairly low per-OS upgrade ratio. I don't think XP is even at 20% of the market yet; Windows 2000 and 98SE are still top contenders as far as market penetration is concerned. In 2005 Longhorn will be released, presumably with a new IE; will we see 20% on "IE 7" by 2007? AFAIK, that would be the lowest next-upgrade adoption rate of IE ever (6 has been low I believe, but primarily because it offers so little above 5.x).

Dropping IE for the Mac? That's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, users see that and say, "I can't [i]browse the Internet[/ik] if I buy a Mac?!?" On the other hand, web designers have long assumed that "Works fine in IE for Windows" means "Works fine in IE", which is just so incredibly wrong when you are dealing with standards-flouting browsers like IE has been the last several revisions.What this gives us, at the least, is some level of consciousness amongst web design firms that they are not (as they have not for some time) providing adequate service to their Mac-based customers. I see market transparency as a good thing here, for everyone but Microsoft.

Again, why would MS do this? Browsers are no longer the "potential cash cow" they looked to be in 1995. Users vehemently avoid any attempts to merchandise through the browser; developers vehemently avoid licensing add-ons (aside from Flash, which IMHO is the devil's work; I see Faustian diplomacy at work there). Microsoft has not been able to capitalize on its browser investments, and doesn't see that changing.

So, they're backing out of the race. Yes, every Windows desktop will have a Microsoft-supplied browser. However, the 25-40% of all users who will actively seek out a "better" product wil strongly gravitate towards the maintained and secure alternatives (Phoenix being the best of the bunch out there right now; others may join the fray).

The result: web designers damned well better start getting used to standards-compliant browsers. The lazy hegemony of IE is going to end. Supporting only the "latest" version of IE will mean shutting yourself off from more than half of your customers.

[Windowlicker]

HAHA! just checked out versiontracker and there it was: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2.3!

Wasn't the development supposed to be stopped? guess this will be the last one.. well, not gonna update anyway.

[NNO-Stephen]

Microsoft is not stopping development of the stand alone browsers because they are pulling out of the browser market, they are doing it to get deeper into the browser market. They were accused of monopolistic behaviors because IE was supposedly embedded into the system and would be unable to remove it (which as we all know is a crock of ****, but now they are trying to make good on their word by actually embedding the browser into Windows further stretching their browser monopoly and also giving them some actual ground for the next time that argument comes up.

[AppleMatt]

Originally posted by Windowlicker
HAHA! just checked out versiontracker and there it was: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2.3!

Wasn't the development supposed to be stopped? guess this will be the last one.. well, not gonna update anyway.

Damn you! I RUSHED here to post this as soon as I saw it.

AppleMatt

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by NNO-Stephen
Microsoft is not stopping development of the stand alone browsers because they are pulling out of the browser market, they are doing it to get deeper into the browser market. They were accused of monopolistic behaviors because IE was supposedly embedded into the system and would be unable to remove it (which as we all know is a crock of ****, but now they are trying to make good on their word by actually embedding the browser into Windows further stretching their browser monopoly and also giving them some actual ground for the next time that argument comes up.

Honestly, I hope this backfires on them. By leaving IE6/Win and IE5/Mac floating out there as their "best" and "latest" while Mozilla, Opera, Safari, etc. keep improving for the next 2-3 years will make MS browsers look like worse and worse browsing options.

By the time IE7, or whatever it will be called, comes out, people will have tried 3rd party browsers and hopefully found a better browsing experience.

[macmax]

While Safari has been a major success in this regard, I'd have to say IMHO Keynote fell well short of the mark (its not bad for a 1.0 product, but its no PowerPoint either)


sorry to turn a light i your room, but keynote is impressing everyone here at college.

powerpoint is outta my life dude

[mikeyredk]

microsoft just realised a new version

http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10902

[Qunchuy]

Originally posted by arn
It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.

It doesn't "make" the Macintosh any more incompatible. All it does is highlight the existing incompatibilities that a handful of web sites have with everything except Internet Explorer.

[Qunchuy]

Originally posted by shadowself
This is just the final phase of Microsoft's classic "accept, extend, kill-of-non-MS-Windows-versions".

Otherwise known as Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate. This is arguably the biggest MS "innovation" around.

One wonders if MS can innovate a way to apply the EEE strategy to Open Source.

[Qunchuy]

Originally posted by Wonder Boy
BTW- I have never been too hot about the name "Safari". As an anthropologist, one would think I would appriciate the name, but I don't. I think Apple could have done better (don't bother asking for suggestions on alternate names, because I have no idea what it should be called).

I always thought iBrowse would have been good.

[Blackcat]

Originally posted by Qunchuy
I always thought iBrowse would have been good.

iBrowse was the Amiga browser. It was nasty.

[MacCoaster]

Originally posted by mikeyredk
microsoft just realised a new version

http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10902
That's not a "new" version per se. Microsoft said they'd keep IE 5.2 patched and supported. That is their new patch.

A general rule is:

[Major] . [minor] . = 5 . 2 . 3

[B][edit] However, there EXISTS Internet Explorer 6.0 for Macintosh, it's called MSN for Mac OS X. It's version 6.0 according to its browser string posted earlier in this thread.

[Makosuke]

It's been mentioned several times in this thread, but I really do find it intersting that MS without question does have a new version of IE for MacOSX already finished and running in the wild--as said, it's called MSN now.

What I find really interesting, though, is that according to the MacEdition CSS test suites, the MacBU (or whoever did the work) was doing a very good job with it; in most areas it apparently has better standards support than any other browser. It kicks the ass of IE6 on windows, and even bests Moz, KHTML, and Opera 7 in a few areas.

Basically, considering how good IE5 Mac was when it first came out (oh, so many long years ago, before it was trampled upon by its competitors--don't forget it once had best-in-class standards support), it's the browser I would expect a new version to be.

The tragic part isn't really that they're not giving it away free (though their charging for an alternative platform browser at this point would be ironic); it's that the only way anyone can get it is to pay $10 a month and sign up for "Sign of the Beast" Passport, so you can be in the happy MSN club. Of course, they should be forced to give away a version of IE for every significant platform, just in case, but apparently the USDOJ doesn't care that much so at least they could sell, rather than lease, it to us.

Having it labeled IE would've embarassed the heck out of the IE Win team, though.

Relevant link: http://www.macedition.com/cb/resources/abridgedcsssupport.html

[random question: why can't an MS browser support a :hover pesudo class for anything other than a elements? It's only been a standard for 5 years now. Is Billy such a big fan of Javascript or something?]

[Panther]

Originally posted by macmax
sorry to turn a light i your room, but keynote is impressing everyone here at college.

powerpoint is outta my life dude Don't get me wrong... its not a bad 1.0 product... it just hasn't had the years of user feedback that PowerPoint has had.

I find the relatively low number of templates (and the choice of only two resolutions) a bit limiting, and the control over text formatting is pretty abysmal.

I'm looking forward to Apple's new "Document" word processor though. I write a lot more documents than I do presentations. I'm kinda interested to see how they innovate in that space.

[Gymnut]

If I recall, Adobe released a few software packages that were Windows only. The reason no Mac outcry? Many of these purposes of these applications could be accomplished in Apple's iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Pro/Express. Sometimes when a software behemoth decides to leave a platform out in the cold it's not that it's doing that bad, but it's doing that good.

[NNO-Stephen]

Originally posted by Gymnut
If I recall, Adobe released a few software packages that were Windows only. The reason no Mac outcry? Many of these purposes of these applications could be accomplished in Apple's iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Pro/Express. Sometimes when a software behemoth decides to leave a platform out in the cold it's not that it's doing that bad, but it's doing that good. True, but that's Adobe, not Microsoft. anything Microsoft does is not because of lack of competition, it's to squash it. just watch. there will be consequences... but wait, theres more.

AOL settles with MS about the lawsuit over something or ohter, and Windows Media Player is the media player that is bundled with AOL... AOL runs on Mac OS... UNLESS either one of these three things happen.

AOL no longer supports Mac

Windows Media Player is developed for mac

they give mac users the already craptastic WMP that has been out for a long time that is brain damaged.

that's the three choices.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by jaykk

Please apple, bring us Safari for Linux. and Windows too

I would LOVE to see Apple produce more software for Linux (which would be any at this point). It would be sweet to have iTunes or Safari for Linux.

However, I am not the proper person to consult when it comes to business practice and how economical any particular move might be. If the internet has truly opened up a new rift in doing business, it would be that of more free commercial-grade software being offered. Look at how much stuff Apple gives away for 'free'. Eventually they need to make some money in the end so they can continue making more products.

But if Apple really does want to pi$$ M$ off, they could make more products for Linux to make Linux an even more promising platform.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
I was shopping online today using OmniWeb (because the cookie manager comes in handy) and I came to another of those web pages that doesn't work right with some browsers. I switched to Internet Explorer and, as one might expect, it worked fine:


Which version of Omniweb were you using? I'm currently using OW 4.5 (v484), and it seemed to work fine.

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by edenwaith
Which version of Omniweb were you using? I'm currently using OW 4.5 (v484), and it seemed to work fine. Uh oh. You caught me using out of date software. I never upgraded from 4.2.1. Now I'm gonna get sent to bed without dinner.

Edit (15 minutes later): I wasn't so naughty after all. Version 4.2.1 is still the latest nonbeta version. Version 4.5 beta 1 is probably better as you seem to suggest (it's now based on Apple's WebCore and JavaScriptCore frameworks), but the Check for Updates... feature doesn't tell you about beta releases!

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by Doctor Q

Edit (15 minutes later): I wasn't so naughty after all. Version 4.2.1 is still the latest nonbeta version. Version 4.5 beta 1 is probably better as you seem to suggest (it's now based on Apple's WebCore and JavaScriptCore frameworks), but the Check for Updates... feature doesn't tell you about beta releases!

Welcome to the world of OW 4.5! Hope you enjoy it. I've been using it since the first sneaky peak builds, and I have seen some great improvements in the past few weeks. OW 4.5 has definitely become my main browser. It looks like Safari and its open source proved to be a very beautiful thing for Omniweb. The standards support is tons, tons, tons better than 4.2 and earlier.

Safari is a good browser (the other browser which I contain in my dock), but I enjoy Omniweb's interface and features more than Safari.

[Doctor Q]

Same here. I'm on 4.5 now, thanks to you, and I keep Safari around to keep in practice. But I still keep I.E. handy in case a site doesn't otherwise work. May those cases be few and far between.

[AppleMatt]

Sorry if this has been posted, but everyone who has installed IE 5.2.3 please repair permissions NOW.

I've bever seen so many permissions incorrect, and it's not just me experiencing this.

Its absolutely amazing.

AppleMatt

[NNO-Stephen]

Originally posted by AppleMatt
Sorry if this has been posted, but everyone who has installed IE 5.2.3 please repair permissions NOW.

I've bever seen so many permissions incorrect, and it's not just me experiencing this.

Its absolutely amazing.

AppleMatt

yeah, there were people on versiontracker saying that too. I noticed it as well and so I repaired the permissions.

[davy the bunny]

Who needs 'em? meh. . .

[fresh]

A lot of people seem to be speculating why MS have ceased development of IE for Mac. Being a windows user at present (plans to change), I was subjected to a rather aging IE. So i started looking around for news on IE updates. From what I've read IE as a stand alone product has been stopped because further enhancements/improvements to IE could not be done in the app itself but required OS changes (or so MS claim). As such MS seem to be working on a browser build-in to longhorn. It kind make sense that since there ceasing IE for Win32, also on Mac (since i believe they share a common code base somewhere along the lines). Because of this I don't see MS creating a new product for Mac OS X, in the near future.

[NickFro]

Very true. M$ has ceased developing IE as a stand-alone product. Despite ongoing antitrust issues, they are simply integrating it into their OS and into other products (e.g., M$N 8 for Mac OS).

In their commentary about ceasing Mac development it was interesting to note that they lamented 'Apple can do more to integrate their browser with the OS than we ever could...'

Poor babies....bring on iWorks (or OO.org at this point...)

[TheMacOS.com]

ive used macs since 1990. I only started using IE about 2 yrs ago.... took me all these years to start using IE, now their canning it. :confused: :mad:

Its actually not that bad a program.... under jaguar it worked pretty good. When I installed panther, thats when it started crashing all the time.

IE for mac was 10 times better than it windows counterpart.

I think that micro$oft is pissed cause apple made their own browser... so that is why they are canning it. Thats my opinion anyway.

:D

[powermac]

This will be great. Forced support of browsers superior to IE or loss of the Mac community are the choices here. I think sites will opt not to lose users on Macs.

I wouldn't be so sure. Some web design firms I've worked at looked at the low market share and simply chose to ignore testing for Mac users at all.

But then again, those web design firms are out of business...so maybe that says something about karma and/or good business practice?

I could still see a lot of (web) developers basically saying "screw mac" because the percentage isn't enough to get their attention. But I'm hoping you're right and this will usher in a new era of browser wars. At the very least it would keep people in check. ;)

[wrldwzrd89]

I wouldn't be so sure. Some web design firms I've worked at looked at the low market share and simply chose to ignore testing for Mac users at all.

But then again, those web design firms are out of business...so maybe that says something about karma and/or good business practice?

I could still see a lot of (web) developers basically saying "screw mac" because the percentage isn't enough to get their attention. But I'm hoping you're right and this will usher in a new era of browser wars. At the very least it would keep people in check. ;)
Those web developers need to realize that "screwing mac" is very short-sighted. Better yet, they should all be forced to run their pages through at least 2 HTML/CSS validators and 1 accessibility validator (like Cynthia Says (http://www.cynthiasays.com/)).

[beg_ne]

I think that micro$oft is pissed cause apple made their own browser... so that is why they are canning it. Thats my opinion anyway.

:D

There is a really good Joy of Tech comic with that same sentiment. Very funny :)

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/490.html

[BaghdadBob]

Web firms ignoring the Mac base? They do realize the dollars-per-capita difference on the Mac side, don't they? Oh yeah, out of business. Laziness will bite you in the ass on the internet, won't it?

[Doctor Q]

I could never understand why banks tolerated on-line banking software that didn't work with IE for Mac, or now with Safari. But I keep hearing people say that their banking software isn't written to standards and they still have to use a PC or I.E. instead of Safari. Banks talk so much about customer service, so how can some of them ignore the web browsers of a small but significant % of their customers?

[powermac]

I could never understand why banks tolerated on-line banking software that didn't work with IE for Mac, or now with Safari. But I keep hearing people say that their banking software isn't written to standards and they still have to use a PC or I.E. instead of Safari. Banks talk so much about customer service, so how can some of them ignore the web browsers of a small but significant % of their customers?

Bank of America works fine with Safari for me. Has anyone had problems with them?

[macdong]

Bank of America works fine with Safari for me. Has anyone had problems with them?

previously i had some rendering problems with Bank of America.
but they recently updated their online banking interface, and Safari works just fine with it.

[stoid]

No problems with the USBank website either. I've never had any problems with Safari accessing websites, except for those programmed not to let any browser but IE in. Then I just get Safari to spoof IE and then everything works fine. :D

[pjkelnhofer]

No problems with the USBank website either. I've never had any problems with Safari accessing websites, except for those programmed not to let any browser but IE in. Then I just get Safari to spoof IE and then everything works fine. :D

How do I get Safari to "spoof" IE? I constantly have problems with my bank bill pay website when using Safari.

[macdong]

How do I get Safari to "spoof" IE? I constantly have problems with my bank bill pay website when using Safari.

you need utility such as Safari Enhancer.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17776

[FatSweatyChimp]

Opera 7 (beta) is out for the Mac. I prefer it to Safari.

[wdlove]

I could never understand why banks tolerated on-line banking software that didn't work with IE for Mac, or now with Safari. But I keep hearing people say that their banking software isn't written to standards and they still have to use a PC or I.E. instead of Safari. Banks talk so much about customer service, so how can some of them ignore the web browsers of a small but significant % of their customers?

I'm currently using Quicken to do my banking. According to a recent phone call, at some time in the near future they plan to discontinue "Bill Pay.' I will still be able to download into Quicken. At that point I will have to use the Web. The positive point is that it will be free. So at that point I will be finding out about compatibility.

[Jookbox]

IE for mac was 10 times better than it windows counterpart.



what the hell are you talking about? you have that reversed.

[cschilderink]

I think Apple saw this coming and that is why they created Safari which I like a ton better!