IE interview on Matasano

My short interview with Window Snyder from Matasano has
been posted over on their

blog. Check it out!

-Christopher Vaughan

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  So, when are bugs in the IE Feedback site going to get looked at?
  
  (yup, it is a bold statement, no holds barred, meant to provoke...)
  
  We are seeing a minimum 1 month plus** wait for bugs to be verified, or commented on.
  
  ** plus, because many of them have still not been looked at.

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  I liked the interview, is nice to know that someone that have a good time in Msoft  is in charge of IE now.
  
  But, can we receive a patch for the current IE7beta 2? I can't visualize some webpages well, and for sure is because the CSS bug.
  
  I can't wait till, agoust and I really dislike firefox because uses a lot more memory, but I really need to visualize some websites well.
  
  peace...

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  I just believe when you get the bugs out send them as a download so we can get these freeze situations corrected. I am not a computer wiz and don't want the technical side, I just want this system to work smooth.  I do not enjoy rebooting every 2nd or 3rd time I get into my emails. I am just a consumer asking for service.  gbh100@earthlink.net
  
  

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  I think Mr. Matasano needs a blessing of good luck from www.onlineblessings.com to make sure this goes out bug free.

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  I am new to this blog, just registered on here last night. I would like to say a big Thank You to Microsoft for doing an outstanding job in the accessibility department. I have been blind since birth and use a screen reader which reads everything aloud to me that appears on the screen. I installed the beta of IE7 a few weeks ago and for the most part I am very happy with it. There is one minor bug which is not Microsoft-related, but rather it is related to my screenreader's interaction with this beta. However, as I found out yesterday this bug will be fixed in subsequent releases of the screen reader in question. Once again, I tip my hat off to you folks at Microsoft and keep up the great work!

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  Steve - just to be clear, you have bugs in for all of the issues you listed right? I'll keep an eye out for them.
  
  -Christopher

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  In regards to Steve's comment with bug #3... The PNG gAMA bug is by far the most aggravating bug I have ever encountered with IE. The best feature PNG images have (besides Alpha Transparency) is gamma correction. PNGs gAMA is such an awesome feature and it's such a shame I have to edit the gAMA chunk out in order to get PNGs to have proper color in IE.
  
  It seems like that would such a simple fix, and it baffles me why it hasn't been addressed.

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  Just a few things I want to say as a developer:
  1.) "It's a simple fix" - you can never say that accurately unless you have the source code. It might seem easy to you, but you have no idea what goes on under the hood.
  
  2.) "lets hope for a bug free release" - for any functional, realworld (i.e., non "hello world" software) there is no such thing as "bug free" releases. There are bugs, there will always be bugs. All programs have them, it's just a fact of life. It's not an MS problem, it's just a flaw of humans who can't make perfect code.
  
  3.) "IE7 is too buggy" - there's a reason why it's beta software and MS doesn't recommend running it on a production system. Running it on a production system and complaining its buggy is like taking a toaster into the shower with you and complaining that you got electrocuted, despite the fact that you ignored the warning. You didn't use the product as directed, it's your fault.
  
  In short, think before you complain. It's good to submit bug reports, it's good suggest ideas, but "IE7 I'm switching to Firefox" solves nothing. If you don't like IE7, you think it's buggy and broken, just remember, there's a reason why it's beta! If MS released the current IE7 as production then you'd have reason to complain. But as you complain that there are still bugs, you also complain that they are taking forever to release! Which do you want, a buggy quick release, or a stable slower release? That's what it really comes down to...

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  codemastr, I've just recently gotten into programming (Python) but am familiar with development for server-side programing/scripting (PHP, SQL, Perl). So yes, I do know what goes on under the hood to some extent (no, I'm no Python expert yet and don't mean to pass myself off as such). But I also understand the the basics of the PNG format. IE is simply outputting an incorrect gamma. I've never bothered looking into it in detail, but I think IE is putting out a 2.5 PNG gamma when I believe it's supposed to be putting out a 2.2. I don't believe Microsoft's developers should have any trouble fixing that. But I could be wrong.

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  jace: "Microsoft is leaving DVD burning out of Vista Home Basic? ... Why in the world would a feature like that be left out? Because Microsoft isn't really concerned about the customer."
  
  Um... maybe because not all home users need DVD burning?
  
  Take a simple home user who uses a PC for web surfing, email, playing games, word processing, and maybe the occasional spreadsheet.  Why should this user have to pay for all these advanced features that he doesn't need?  People complain when MS bundles stuff and forces them to pay for it whether or not they need it.  Here they're not doing that: they're giving home users several choices so they can pick the edition that best fits their needs.
  
  Choice is good.

• Anonymous
  June 21, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  I've seen the Beta Version of IE7 and still the "Original Sin" bug is there:
  
  <button>1234567890123456789</button>
  
  Butons with more than 18 characters are incorrectly rendered when Using WindowsXP Luna Themes. (Opera/FF don't have this problem under same conditions).
  
  This one has been reported endless times in MS forums.

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  "IE7+ running on Windows Vista: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
  IE7 running on Windows XP: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1) "
  
  Why IE7 has to say "Mozilla/4.0" ? When Mozilla is different community/product ?

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  @GZO:
  
  Agreeeeed! That bug is hideous!, and plagues IE6&7.
  
  What is humourous about the post you made, is that it actually highlights several bugs at once.
  
  1.) The submit behaviour of <button value="this">notthis</button> has been busted longer than I can recall.
  2.) The rendering of the <input type="button"/>,<input type="submit"/>,<input type="reset"/> All have the visual bug you mentioned, when they get stretched to 19 typical chars, or "medium sized" if your font size is large (e.g. 16pt)
  3.) The padding (left and right) of the text on large buttons, seems to grow oddly... ~50px on both sides, once the value of the button increases to more than 12 (guessing) characters.
  
  Again, this is one of those, there doesn't even need to be a bug entered for bugs... as everyone that uses the OS, knows about this bug.

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  @RamaSubbu
  
  This has been discussed before.
  http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/04/27/412813.aspx
  
  For compatibility, it will always contain Mozilla.
  
  My concern, is the (+)... this has been brought up many times, and WILL cause users and IT support no end of problems.
  
  It is IE7 (period)... if you also want to ask if they are running Vista or XP, go for it.
  
  
  

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  @Heri
  "codemastr, I've just recently gotten into programming (Python) but am familiar with development for server-side programing/scripting (PHP, SQL, Perl). So yes, I do know what goes on under the hood to some extent"
  
  Python/PHP/Perl are completely seperate from Windows/C++ development. The level of difficulty goes up by quite some for it. Adding on to that is the fact that there are probably several dozen developers working on IE and Microsoft is a large company.
  
  Like codemastr pointed out, you cannot state the difficulty of a change unless you have the source code. There is so much more involved than just a simple WriteLine().

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  @ Aedrin
  Agreed and I'm aware of that. The Windows programming environment is much different then what I'm familiar with. But with the experience I do have, I understand that the programming environment (regardless of what programming language is used) is not always easy going. However the PNG format is open source so Microsoft’s developers can’t complain about patent issues and all the other non-sense that GIFs have. The fact of the matter is IE already reads PNG's gAMA chunk, but it takes the sRGB standard 0.45455 (gamma 2.2) and puts it out somewhere around 0.40000 (gamma 2.5). Mac uses gamma 1.8 (0.55556), PC uses gamma 2.5 (0.40000), and the happy medium is supposed to be 2.2 (0.45455).
  
  This happy medium was created in part by Microsoft in conjunction with Hewlett Packard and the International Color Consortium. It deals with the sRGB color space that uses a standard gamma of 2.2.
  
  Webmasters have long advocated the use of PNGs in place of GIFs. IE finally has Alpha Transparency support (and I thank Microsoft for that) which takes PNGs off the shelf, but they still need dusted off. IE7 is still in beta, and even after that it won’t become the standard replacement for IE6 for a good while yet; and regardless we still can’t take full advantage of PNGs yet because of the gAMA problem.
  
  And when I said the gamma problem is the most aggravating problem that I think IE has, I don’t mean to pass it off as the most important. There are issues that are far, far more important then PNGs, but the gamma problem is just plain aggravating. :)

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  I have a simple question:
  Why is MS presenting IE7 Beta 2 as though it were a real ready-for-prime-time product?
  
  See the MS IE home pages at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/.
  
  Doesn't this just add to the confusion created when this beta (i.e., not yet done and released) product doesn't work as expected?

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2006
  @"I remember reading that IE7 will likely be the last browser MS releases for XP."
  
  Caveat lector.  No one from Microsoft ever said anything of the sort.  They're already looking at IE7.5 and IE8.

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2006
  @Stan
  
  I actually remember reading in the context of the next two browser releases, that they WOULD NOT ship them downlevel.
  
  I would go look for the linkage, but I'll leave this exercise to the reader

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2006
  Think about this:
  
  XP Home Edition and XP Media Center Edition will only be supported 2 years after the release of Vista Home [basic|premium|yadda yadda]
  
  "Windows XP Home Edition - Mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released "
  
  http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3221
  
  "Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 - Mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released"
  
  http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=7024
  
  If 18mo is the new timeframe for browser releases, does it make sense for Microsoft to ship a new browser for an OS that would be dropped from support 6 months after the browser is release?
  
  So another question, will the "imaginary IE 7.5" be available for XP Professional and higher only?
  
  We need a decent product roadmap from Microsoft NOW, not these guesses (your, mine or ours).
  
  And where are you coming up with IE 7.5??

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2006
  @Jace: The remark you're noting was made in comments and was not made by a Microsoft employee.
  
  Internet Explorer 7.5/8.0 planning is underway.  As announced by Bill Gates at the Mix06 conference, our current plan is to ship a new release of IE approximately every year.
  
  The IE team has been supporting legacy operating systems well into their extended support cycles.

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2006
  Eric,
  
  Thanks for clarifying about 7.5/8.0 planning being underway.
  
  I'm not trying to be unfair, but I think that in all fairness, and at a minimum IE 7.5 should ship for XP, Home, Media and Professional.
  
  To be honest, IE 7.0 is quite good and I use it every day. I have used each public preview/beta and find that it is steadily improving. With just 2 or 3 simple niceties, I would be comfortable using this browser for 2-3 more years.
  
  I am not one that likes to change solid working technology, but knowing that I should have had an IE 7 3 years ago, and an 8.0 now, makes me hope that we'll get 7.0 and at least a 7.5 that will help XP along for the rest of the consumer/business ROI (on XP) cycle.
  
  Thanks again for the reply.

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2006
  Great interview when is the next coming, I think there were alot of questions that were not asked and answered.

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 25, 2006
  Omar-- Perhaps you could offer some useful feedback rather than your random and worthless rants?
  
  For instance, how about you post bug #s or hyperlinks to the bugs you've filed so others can validate them?

• Anonymous
  June 26, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 26, 2006
  @Omar: Where are you filing bugs? (I don't think any of our beta testers have posted thousands of bugs yet.)

• Anonymous
  June 26, 2006
  EricLaw [MSFT] wrote:
  The IE team has been supporting legacy operating systems well into their extended support cycles.
  
  That's a bit of a stretch.  It's been many years since an IE update, unless you mean security patches.

• Anonymous
  June 27, 2006
  @"It's been many years since an IE update, unless you mean security patches."
  
  I think it's entirely reasonable to say that "security patches" reflect "support" for legacy OSes.  
  
  No one is claiming that Microsoft shipped a new version of IE (e.g. later than IE6) for a legacy OS (e.g. older than XP), and it's pretty absurd to imply that there's any such "doublespeak" going on.

• Anonymous
  June 28, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 29, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 30, 2006
  I think this is now a major browser!

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